| Featured Phyla |
| Uniramia insects, millipedes, centipedes |
| Platyhelminthesflatworms, flukes, tapeworms |
| Mollusca snails, slugs, squid, octopus, clams, ship worms |
| Annelida worms, earthworms, leeches |
| Chelicerata spiders, harvestmen, mites, ticks, scorpions, horseshoe crabs |
| Echinodermata star fish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, sea biscuits |
| Cnidaria,
jellyfish, medusae, corals, anemones, sea fans, sea pens |
| Chaetognatha Arrow worms |
| Pentastomida tongue worms |
| Onychophora velvet worms |
| Tardigrada water bears |
| Nematoda round worms, hook worms |
| Crustacea crabs, shrimps, barnacles, water fleas, cyclops, woodlice |
| Nemertea ribbon worms |
| Chordata sea squirts, vertebrates |
| Nematomorpha hair worms |
| Porifera sponges |
| Ctenophora comb jellies & sea gooseberries |
| Pogonophora |
| Hemichordata |
| Brachiopoda lamp shells |
| Echiura |
| Sipuncula peanut worms |
| Bryozoa moss animals, polyzoa, ectoprocts |
| Phoronida |
| Priapulida |
| Loricifera |
| Entoprocta |
| Acanthocephala spiny-headed worms |
| Kinorhyncha |
| Gastrotricha |
| Rotifera |
| Mesozoa |
| Gnathostomulida |
| Placozoa |
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Below, a tapeworm.
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Invertebrates make up 99% of animal life on Earth. On this site you will find
descriptions and images of the various invertebrate phyla; just click on one of the top ten below, or the Animal Kingdom tab above, or the list on the left. Or if you are not sure where to look try the Google search at the top right.
The invertebrates are the little things
that run our world. Because of our great size we tend not to notice them,
but they were here long before us, and will be here long after we are gone (see my rant at the bottom of the page). And
it would do our egos good to remember that without them we would soon die, but
if all of us vanished tomorrow they would hardly notice.
In the average patch of
Amazonian rainforest 93% of the dry weight of animal tissue is invertebrate according to Edward O. Wilson, the Harvard ecologist and ant expert. |
Below some of the many different types of insect mouthparts
Below the bath sponge, Spongia sp.
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A hectare of good
quality soil has about 1000 kg each of earthworms and arthropods (uniramia, chelicerata)
according to David Pimentel of Cornell University.
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April 2008 top ten pages |
| 1 |
Homework answers. Definitions, notes, lists, essays. |
| 2 |
Animalia. An overview of the animal kingdom with diagrams (see below) , tables, etc. |
| 3 |
Porifera. The sponges, with characteristics, photographs below left a photograph of the bath sponge) and diagrams. |
| 4 |
Platyhelminthes. The flatworms, flukes and tapeworms (see the tapeworm photograph above), phtographs, drawings, diagrams, and a list of some of the species who might be living inside you! |
| 5 |
Nematoda. Roundworm, hookworm, common parasites of humans and whales, a page full of drawings and photographs, see the diagram of Ascaris below. |
| 6 |
Hexapoda. The insect entry page, with diagrams of insect body parts (see insect mouthparts drawing above left) and links to more detailed pages. |
| 7 |
Crustacea. This, and the more detailed linked pages, is where you will find information, drawings and photographs of crabs (see the photograph of a robber crab at teh bottom of the page), shrimp, woodlice, water fleas, barnacles and cyclops, etc. |
| 8 |
Chordata. This is the page for information on sea squirts (see the drawing below left), lancelets, etc. |
| 9 |
Cnidaria. Jellyfish, polyps, corals, medusae, sea fans, sea pens, with characteristics, photographs, drawings and diagrams, see the jellyfish sting below left. |
| 10 |
Earthworms. How they move, breathe, mate, and more. Photographs, diagrams (see the cross-section of an earthworm body far below) and simple, harmless experiments. |
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Above an adult ladybird,
and below a nematocyst (stinging cell) of a jellyfish, and next to is the adult stage of sea squirt inside its cellulose-like tunic .
Above athe robber crab.
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Above a diagram of the major divisions of the animal kingdom. Below a cross section of a female Ascaris nematode. In certain areas of the US up to 60% of the human population are host to one or more of these little (up to 30 cm long) darlings!
Below a cross-section of an earthworm
Global warming and pollution caused by us are having a real effect on the Earth. Species are going extinct in numbers higher than the normal background rate. However what is all this compared to Earth's past history which is measured in millions of years, while our recorded history is just a few thousand years, and as a species just a few hundred thousand years?
We are destroying the Earth as we know it, but we are not destroying the Earth. Nothing in human power can come close to the catastrophes the Earth has weathered in the past. Neither atomic bombs nor global warming at its worst will be as severe as the mass extinctions caused by the meteor impact in the late Cretaceous. This impact wiped out half the marine species it is estimated, as well as leading to the demise of the dinosaurs. Yet the earth recovered, and the small, hairy mammalian afterthought that was our ancestor prospered. Even this was as nothing to the huge catastrophe in the Permian, which is estimated to have caused the extinction of 95% of species. And the Earth went on and life continued, and species evolved.
So when we moan and groan about global warming and pollution it is OUR world we want to save. OUR species, OUR furry, feathery animals. The trees and plants WE like to look at and, smell and eat. And if we fail? Well many of them will go extinct along with us, but the Earth will go on. It will turn in its axis and the sun will rise. And life will go on. Some species will prosper in the new conditions, and other species will undergo changes, and divisions will occur and new species will emerge. Humans do not have the power to snuff out life, but we do have the power to snuff out species and change the world into something we cannot live in. So, do we keep this little paradise we have, or do we shuffle off and leave it to more adaptable species?
The choice is yours, isn't it?
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VietnamPages
Stonehaven, Scotland
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