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Echinodermata Bruguière, 1791 [ex Klein, 1734]
EOL Text
Since they are almost exclusively marine species, echinoderms are probably osmoconformers, with little ionic regulation.
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Rights holder/Author | ©1995-2013, The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors |
Source | http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Echinodermata/ |
Echinoderms are invertebrate marine animals that are found in all oceans of the world and at all depths. There are no echinoderms in freshwater environments.
Members of the Phylum Echinodermata include many easily recognizable creatures such as sea stars (or starfish), brittle stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and sea lilies. All of these animals are radially or biradially symmetric, and they fill a variety of niches in marine environments as particle feeders, browsers, scavengers, and predators.
Tube feet attach in marine environment: echinoderms
The tube feet of echinoderms attach to surfaces via suction adhesion.
"Besides mollusks, echinoderm tube feet make use of suction adhesion, as do a wide variety of other aquatic systems--either as the only attachment mechanism or in combination with others. Among terrestrial systems one thinks first of wet ones--frogs for instance. But the mechanism finds use even in arboreal mammals." (Vogel 2003:427)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Steven Vogel. 2003. Comparative Biomechanics: Life's Physical World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 580 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/e21044aba85bbecb2673afd5b96eeeee |
Link to the "Echinodermata" article on Wikipedia.
License | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Frédéric Ducarme, Frédéric Ducarme |
Source | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinoderm |
Skeleton components arranged efficiently: starfish
The skeletons of some echinoderms arrange their calcium carbonate plates efficiently using pentaradial symmetry.
"Starfish have five arms; sand dollars have five radial food grooves on their undersides--this arrangement of five elements radiating from a center point ('pentaradial symmetry') is widespread among the echinoderms but unknown elsewhere in nature…Early echinoderms were covered with a skeleton made up of discrete plates of calcium carbonate. Now one can pave a floor with triangles, squares, or hexagons, but using pentagons alone inevitably leaves gaps. One can't make an array of squares close on itself to form a hollow solid unless at eight special locations the apices of three rather than four squares touch, a distinct complication. And one can't make any array solely of hexagons close on itself at all. Conversely one can get a closed, space-enclosing structure from triangles (tetrahedrons are the simplest, but others such as twenty-sided icosahedrons are possible) and pentagons (the simplest being the twelve-sided dodecahedron). Among the pentagons (fig. 4.13) hexagons can be intercalated practically without limit, but twelve basic pentagons must remain. In the most symmetrical arrangement, these pentagons are in six pairs with members of a pair at the opposite extremities of the solid. If we run an axis between members of one pair, the ten other pentagons then arrange themselves in two nearly equatorial rings. If enough hexagons are intercalated, these can form the key elements of five arms. And a look at any book treating the paleontology of echinoderms reveals a host of hexagonal plates. Perhaps a pentaradial symmetry is, in fact, a 'natural' or easy way to organize a radially symmetrical creature built of a shell of little solid elements!" (Vogel 2003:87-88)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Steven Vogel. 2003. Comparative Biomechanics: Life's Physical World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 580 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/7766025228ecd836d440f23c9abd4662 |
Echinodermata has approximately 7000 described living species and about 13,000 extinct species known from the fossil record. This phylum is the largest without any freshwater or terrestrial forms.
- Brusca, R., G. Brusca. 2003. Invertebrates. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc..
- Waggoner, B. 1999. "Introduction to the Echinodermata" (On-line). Accessed January 16, 2005 at http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/echinodermata/echinodermata.html.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | ©1995-2013, The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors |
Source | http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Echinodermata/ |
Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) Stats
Specimen Records:33070
Specimens with Sequences:25739
Specimens with Barcodes:23990
Species:2225
Species With Barcodes:1827
Public Records:18687
Public Species:1162
Public BINs:1711
Metazoa with water vascular system, tube feet, and ciliated larvae. Marine.
Genomic DNA is available from 1 specimen
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Source | http://www.oglf.org/catalog/details.php?id=T02787 |