List of animal classes

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The following is a list of the classes in each phylum of the kingdom Animalia. There are 107 classes of animals in 33 phyla in this list. However, different sources give different numbers of classes and phyla. For example, Protura, Diplura, and Collembola are often considered to be the three orders in the class Entognatha. This list should by no means be considered complete and authoritative and should be used carefully.

Contents

Acanthocephala (thorny-headed worms)

Acoelomorpha (simple soft-bodied flatworms)

Annelida (segmented worms)

Arthropoda (arthropods: insects, crustaceans, arachnids, centipedes, and millipedes)

Chelicerata [1]

Crustacea [2]

Hexapoda [7]

Myriapoda [8]

Brachiopoda ("lamp shells")

Bryozoa (moss animals)

Chaetognatha (arrow worms)

Chordata (vertebrates, tunicates, and lancelets)

Cephalochordata

Tunicata

Vertebrata

Agnatha

Cyclostomata

Gnathostomata

Cnidaria (marine stinging animals)

Cycliophora (tiny marine animals)

Dicyemida (rhombozoa)

Echinodermata (starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars, sea lilies, and others)

Crinozoa

Asterozoa

Echinozoa

Entoprocta

Gastrotricha (hairybacks)

Gnathostomulida (jaw worms)

Hemichordata

Kinorhyncha (mud dragons)

Loricifera

Mollusca (mollusks)

Micrognathozoa

Nematoda (roundworms)

Nematomorpha (horsehair worms)

Nemertea (ribbon worms)

Onychophora (velvet worms)

Orthonectida

Placozoa

Platyhelminthes (flatworms)

Porifera (sponges)

Priapulida (priapulid worms)

Rotifera (rotifers)

Tardigrada (tardigrades, water bears, or moss piglets)

Xenoturbellida

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cnidaria</span> Aquatic animal phylum having cnydocytes

Cnidaria is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in fresh water and marine environments, including jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemones, corals and some of the smallest marine parasites. Their distinguishing features are a decentralized nervous system distributed throughout a gelatinous body and the presence of cnidocytes or cnidoblasts, specialized cells with ejectable flagella used mainly for envenomation and capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living, jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell thick. Cnidarians are also some of the only animals that can reproduce both sexually and asexually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Invertebrate</span> Animals without a vertebral column

Invertebrates is an umbrella term describing animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column, which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum Vertebrata, i.e. vertebrates. Well-known phyla of invertebrates include arthropods, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms, flatworms, cnidarians, and sponges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nematomorpha</span> Phylum of parasitoid animals, horsehair worms

Nematomorpha are a phylum of parasitoid animals superficially similar to nematode worms in morphology, hence the name. Most species range in size from 50 to 100 millimetres, reaching 2 metres (79 in) in extreme cases, and 1 to 3 millimetres in diameter. Horsehair worms can be discovered in damp areas, such as watering troughs, swimming pools, streams, puddles, and cisterns. The adult worms are free-living, but the larvae are parasitic on arthropods, such as beetles, cockroaches, mantises, orthopterans, and crustaceans. About 351 freshwater species are known and a conservative estimate suggests that there may be about 2000 freshwater species worldwide. The name "Gordian" stems from the legendary Gordian knot. This relates to the fact that nematomorphs often coil themselves in tight balls that resemble knots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nemertea</span> Phylum of invertebrates, ribbon worms

Nemertea is a phylum of animals also known as ribbon worms or proboscis worms, consisting of about 1300 known species. Most ribbon worms are very slim, usually only a few millimeters wide, although a few have relatively short but wide bodies. Many have patterns of yellow, orange, red and green coloration. The foregut, stomach and intestine run a little below the midline of the body, the anus is at the tip of the tail, and the mouth is under the front. A little above the gut is the rhynchocoel, a cavity which mostly runs above the midline and ends a little short of the rear of the body. All species have a proboscis which lies in the rhynchocoel when inactive but everts to emerge just above the mouth to capture the animal's prey with venom. A highly extensible muscle in the back of the rhynchocoel pulls the proboscis in when an attack ends. A few species with stubby bodies filter feed and have suckers at the front and back ends, with which they attach to a host.

Vermes ("worms") is an obsolete taxon used by Carl Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for non-arthropod invertebrate animals.

Reef safe is a distinction used in the saltwater aquarium hobby to indicate that a fish or invertebrate is safe to add to a reef aquarium. There is no fish that is completely reef safe. Every fish that is commonly listed as reef safe are species that usually do not readily consume small fish or invertebrates. Fish listed as reef safe also do not bother fellow fish unless in some cases, for instance tangs, they do not get along with conspecifics and sometimes fish with similar color or body shape. Every fish has a personality, is different, and, in some cases, are opportunistic feeders. Tangs, which by most accounts are reef safe, may in adulthood eat some crustaceans shortly after they molt. Many larger predatory fish, for instance eels and pufferfish, will adapt very well to a reef tank and will be problem-free as long as they have sizable tank-mates and no crustaceans. Some aquarists have also had success in keeping smaller fish with predatory ones in reef tanks by adding the smaller fish at night, sometimes with newly rearranged rockwork.

<i>Lineus longissimus</i> Species of ribbon worm

The bootlace worm is a species of ribbon worm and one of the longest known animals, with specimens up to 55 m (180 ft) long being reported. Its mucus is highly toxic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coelenterata</span> Term encompassing animal phyla Cnidaria and Ctenophora

Coelenterata is a term encompassing the animal phyla Cnidaria and Ctenophora. The name comes from Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koîlos) 'hollow' and ἔντερον (énteron) 'intestine', referring to the hollow body cavity common to these two phyla. They have very simple tissue organization, with only two layers of cells, along with a middle undifferentiated layer called mesoglea, and radial symmetry. Some examples are corals, which are typically colonial; hydrae, jellyfish, sea anemones, and Aurelia, which are solitary; Pennatula; Portuguese man o' war; Gorgonia; and Physalia. Coelenterata lack a specialized circulatory system, relying instead on diffusion across the tissue layers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine life</span> Organisms that live in salt water

Marine life, sea life, or ocean life is the plants, animals, and other organisms that live in the salt water of seas or oceans, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet. Marine organisms, mostly microorganisms, produce oxygen and sequester carbon. Marine life, in part, shape and protect shorelines, and some marine organisms even help create new land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Body plan</span> Set of morphological features common to members of a phylum of animals

A body plan, Bauplan, or ground plan is a set of morphological features common to many members of a phylum of animals. The vertebrates share one body plan, while invertebrates have many.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eoacanthocephala</span> Class of thorny-headed worms

Eoacanthocephala is a class of parasitic worms, within the phylum Acanthocephala. They feed on any aquatic cold-blooded creature such as turtles and fish. Their proboscis spines are arranged radially, with no protonephridia, and with persistent ligament sacs in female. The only reliable way to identify the group is that they only have one cement gland. This is a primitive characteristic and hence the name. The class contains 2 orders:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrestrial animal</span> Animals living on land

Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land, as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water, and semiaquatic animals, which rely on both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Some groups of insects are terrestrial, such as ants, butterflies, earwigs, cockroaches, grasshoppers and many others, while other groups are partially aquatic, such as mosquitoes and dragonflies, which pass their larval stages in water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal</span> Kingdom of living things

Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Animals form a clade, meaning that they arose from a single common ancestor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taxonomy of commonly fossilised invertebrates</span>

The taxonomy of commonly fossilized invertebrates combines both traditional and modern paleozoological terminology. This article compiles various invertebrate taxa in the fossil record, ranging from protists to arthropods. This includes groups that are significant in paleontological contexts, abundant in the fossil record, or have a high proportion of extinct species. Special notations are explained below:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine invertebrates</span> Marine animals without a vertebral column

Marine invertebrates are the invertebrates that live in marine habitats. Invertebrate is a blanket term that includes all animals apart from the vertebrate members of the chordate phylum. Invertebrates lack a vertebral column, and some have evolved a shell or a hard exoskeleton. As on land and in the air, marine invertebrates have a large variety of body plans, and have been categorised into over 30 phyla. They make up most of the macroscopic life in the oceans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worm</span> Limbless invertebrate animal

Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and usually no eyes.

10th edition of <i>Systema Naturae</i> Book by Carl Linnaeus

The 10th edition of Systema Naturae is a book written by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature for animals, something he had already done for plants in his 1753 publication of Species Plantarum.

References

  1. Integrated Taxonomic Information System. "ITIS Standard Report Page: Chelicerata". www.itis.gov.
  2. Integrated Taxonomic Information System. "ITIS Standard Report Page: Crustacea". www.itis.gov.
  3. Regents of the University of California. "Introduction to Brachiopoda". www.ucmp.berkeley.edu.
  4. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2014-10-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-12. Retrieved 2014-10-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. Conlan, Kathleen E.; Bousfield, Edward. "Malacostracan | crustacean". www.britannica.com.
  7. "ITIS Standard Report Page: Hexapoda". www.itis.gov. Integrated Taxonomic Information System.
  8. "ITIS Standard Report Page: Myriapoda". www.itis.gov. Integrated Taxonomic Information System.
  9. 1 2 Tessler, Michael; Neumann, Johannes S.; Kamm, Kai; Osigus, Hans-Jürgen; Eshel, Gil; Narechania, Apurva; Burns, John A.; DeSalle, Rob; Schierwater, Bernd (2022-12-08). "Phylogenomics and the first higher taxonomy of Placozoa, an ancient and enigmatic animal phylum". Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 10. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.1016357 .