The nephridium (plural nephridia) is an invertebrate organ, found in pairs and performing a function similar to the vertebratekidneys (which originated from the chordate nephridia). Nephridia remove metabolic wastes from an animal's body. Nephridia come in two basic categories: metanephridia and protonephridia. All nephridia- and kidney- having animals belong to the cladeNephrozoa.
A metanephridium typically consists of a ciliated funnel opening into the body cavity, or coelom connected to a duct which may be variously glandularized, folded or expanded (vesiculate) and which typically opens to the organism's exterior. These ciliated tubules pump water carrying surplus ions, metabolic waste, toxins from food, and useless hormones out of the organism by directing them down funnel-shaped bodies called nephrostomes. This waste is passed out of the organism at the nephridiopore. The primary urine produced by filtration of blood (or a similarly functioning fluid) is modified into secondary urine through selective reabsorption by the cells lining the metanephridium.
Saccate metanephridia
The saccate metanephridia are excretory glands which function similarly to the metanephridia. They are found in the arthropods: coxal glands of arachnids, antennal (or green) glands and maxillary glands of crustaceans, etc.
The saccate metanephridia filter the fluid of the hemocoel, as opposed to the metanephridia which filter coelomic fluid. In a saccate metanephridium, there is a ciliated funnel covered with a membrane that helps to filter the hemocoel of heavy particles (such as proteins and carbohydrates) before the fluid even enters the funnel. Inside the funnel, the fluid is further processed through selective reabsorption, and eventually excreted from the nephridiopore.
In Crustacea, the saccate metanephridia are associated with the antennae and form the antennal gland. In freshwater crustacea, the saccate metanephridia are especially large due to their role in osmoregulation; crustacea must remove large amounts of water from the tissues, as the cells are hypertonic to the surrounding water.
Protonephridia
Flatworm flame cell
A protonephridium (proto = "first") is found in the phyla Platyhelminthes, Nemertea, Rotifera and Chordata (lancelets). They have the same anatomy as the metanephridia but with the internal ciliated funnel blocked by terminal cells: either a flame cells (if ciliated) or a solenocytes (if flagellated). Thus their tubules lack internal openings, while retaining their opening to the organism's exterior. They function in osmoregulation (ionoregulation).
Each terminal cell has one or more cilia and their beating inside the protonephridial tube creates an outward going current and hence a partial pressurization in the blind of the tube. Because of this, pressurization drives waste fluids from the inside of the animal, and they are pulled through small perforations in the terminal cells and into the protonephridium. The perforations in the terminal cell are large enough for small molecules to pass, but larger proteins are retained within the animal. From the bottom of the protonephridium the solutes are led through the tube, formed by the canal cells, and exits the animal from a small opening formed by the nephridiopore.
Selective reabsorption of useful molecules by the canal cells occurs as the solutes pass down the tubule. Protonephridia are generally found in basal organisms such as flatworms. Protonephridia likely first arose as a way to cope with a hypotonic environment by removing excess water from the organism (osmoregulation). Their use as excretory and ionoregulatory structures likely arose secondarily.
These are excretory systems in phyla Platyhelminthes and are also called blind tubules. These tubules bear a tuft of cilia or flagellum. An organ of excretion in flatworms: a hollow cup-shaped cell containing a bunch of cilia or flagellum, whose movement draws in waste products and wafts them to the outside through a connecting tubule.
Baeumler N., Haszprunar G. & Ruthensteiner B. (2012). "Development of the excretory system in a polyplacophoran mollusc: stages in metanephridial system development". Frontiers in Zoology9: 23. doi:10.1186/1742-9994-9-23.
The flatworms, flat worms, Platyhelminthes, or platyhelminths are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrates. Unlike other bilaterians, they are acoelomates, and have no specialized circulatory and respiratory organs, which restricts them to having flattened shapes that allow oxygen and nutrients to pass through their bodies by diffusion. The digestive cavity has only one opening for both ingestion and egestion ; as a result, the food cannot be processed continuously.
The gastrotrichs, commonly referred to as hairybellies or hairybacks, are a group of microscopic (0.06-3.0 mm), worm-like, acoelomate animals, and are widely distributed and abundant in freshwater and marine environments. They are mostly benthic and live within the periphyton, the layer of tiny organisms and detritus that is found on the seabed and the beds of other water bodies. The majority live on and between particles of sediment or on other submerged surfaces, but a few species are terrestrial and live on land in the film of water surrounding grains of soil. Gastrotrichs are divided into two orders, the Macrodasyida which are marine, and the Chaetonotida, some of which are marine and some freshwater. Nearly 800 species of gastrotrich have been described.
Nemertea is a phylum of animals also known as ribbon worms or proboscis worms. 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.
The coelom is the main body cavity in most animals and is positioned inside the body to surround and contain the digestive tract and other organs. In some animals, it is lined with mesothelium. In other animals, such as molluscs, it remains undifferentiated. In the past, and for practical purposes, coelom characteristics have been used to classify bilaterian animal phyla into informal groups.
The excretory system is a passive biological system that removes excess, unnecessary materials from the body fluids of an organism, so as to help maintain internal chemical homeostasis and prevent damage to the body. The dual function of excretory systems is the elimination of the waste products of metabolism and to drain the body of used up and broken down components in a liquid and gaseous state. In humans and other amniotes most of these substances leave the body as urine and to some degree exhalation, mammals also expel them through sweating.
Excretion is a process in which metabolic waste is eliminated from an organism. In vertebrates this is primarily carried out by the lungs, kidneys, and skin. This is in contrast with secretion, where the substance may have specific tasks after leaving the cell. Excretion is an essential process in all forms of life. For example, in mammals, urine is expelled through the urethra, which is part of the excretory system. In unicellular organisms, waste products are discharged directly through the surface of the cell.
Trematoda is a class within the phylum Platyhelminthes. It includes two groups of parasitic flatworms, known as flukes.
A planarian is one of many flatworms of the traditional class Turbellaria. It usually describes free-living flatworms of the order Tricladida (triclads), although this common name is also used for a wide number of free-living platyhelminthes. Planaria are common to many parts of the world, living in both saltwater and freshwater ponds and rivers. Some species are terrestrial and are found under logs, in or on the soil, and on plants in humid areas.
The Turbellaria are one of the traditional sub-divisions of the phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms), and include all the sub-groups that are not exclusively parasitic. There are about 4,500 species, which range from 1 mm (0.039 in) to large freshwater forms more than 500 mm (20 in) long or terrestrial species like Bipalium kewense which can reach 600 mm (24 in) in length. All the larger forms are flat with ribbon-like or leaf-like shapes, since their lack of respiratory and circulatory systems means that they have to rely on diffusion for internal transport of metabolites. However, many of the smaller forms are round in cross section. Most are predators, and all live in water or in moist terrestrial environments. Most forms reproduce sexually and with few exceptions all are simultaneous hermaphrodites.
The Malpighian tubule system is a type of excretory and osmoregulatory system found in some insects, myriapods, arachnids and tardigrades.
A flame cell is a specialized excretory cell found in the simplest freshwater invertebrates, including flatworms, rotifers and nemerteans; these are the simplest animals to have a dedicated excretory system. Flame cells function like a kidney, removing waste materials. Bundles of flame cells are called protonephridia.
A nephridiopore is part of the nephridium, an excretory organ found in many organisms, such as flatworms and annelids. Polychaetes typically release their gametes into the water column using nephridiopores.
The coxal gland is a gland found in some arthropods, for collecting and excreting urine. They are found in all arachnids, and in other chelicerates, such as horseshoe crabs. The coxal gland is thought to be homologous with the antennal gland of crustaceans. The gland consists of an end sac (saccule), a long duct (labyrinth) and a terminal bladder (reservoir). There is generally only one pair, and they open on the coxae of the walking legs. The coxal secretion of adult female ticks of Ornithodoros erraticus contains a sex pheromone.
Pronephros is the most basic of the three excretory organs that develop in vertebrates, corresponding to the first stage of kidney development. It is succeeded by the mesonephros, which in fish and amphibians remains as the adult kidney. In amniotes the mesonephros is the embryonic kidney and a more complex metanephros acts as the adult kidney. Once a more advanced kidney forms, the previous version typically degenerates by apoptosis or becomes part of the male reproductive system.
Osmoregulation is the active regulation of the osmotic pressure of an organism's body fluids, detected by osmoreceptors, to maintain the homeostasis of the organism's water content; that is, it maintains the fluid balance and the concentration of electrolytes to keep the body fluids from becoming too diluted or concentrated. Osmotic pressure is a measure of the tendency of water to move into one solution from another by osmosis. The higher the osmotic pressure of a solution, the more water tends to move into it. Pressure must be exerted on the hypertonic side of a selectively permeable membrane to prevent diffusion of water by osmosis from the side containing pure water.
Phoronids are a small phylum of marine animals that filter-feed with a lophophore, and build upright tubes of chitin to support and protect their soft bodies. They live in most of the oceans and seas, including the Arctic Ocean but excluding the Antarctic Ocean, and between the intertidal zone and about 400 meters down. Most adult phoronids are 2 cm long and about 1.5 mm wide, although the largest are 50 cm long.
Nephrozoa is a major clade of bilaterians, divided into the protostomes and the deuterostomes, containing almost all animal phyla and over a million extant species. Its sister clade is the Xenacoelomorpha. The Ambulacraria was formerly thought to be sister to the Xenacoelomorpha, forming the Xenambulacraria as basal Deuterostomes, or basal Bilateria invalidating Nephrozoa and Deuterostomes in earlier studies. The coelom, the digestive tract and excretory organs (nephridia), and nerve cords developed in the Nephrozoa. It has been argued that, because protonephridia are only found in protostomes, they cannot be considered a synapomorphy of this group. This would make Nephrozoa an improper name, leaving Eubilateria as this clade's name.
In pharmacology the elimination or excretion of a drug is understood to be any one of a number of processes by which a drug is eliminated from an organism either in an unaltered form or modified as a metabolite. The kidney is the main excretory organ although others exist such as the liver, the skin, the lungs or glandular structures, such as the salivary glands and the lacrimal glands. These organs or structures use specific routes to expel a drug from the body, these are termed elimination pathways:
In biology, solenocytes are flagellated cells associated with excretion, osmoregulation and ionoregulation in many animals and in some chordates under the sub-phylum Cephalochordata.
The rock dove, Columbia livia, has a number of special adaptations for regulating water uptake and loss.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
