Name major phyla of Animal kingdom. Write down one character and one example of each of them.
(1) Phylum Porifeara - Sessile, sedentary, and marine except one group that lives in fresh water.
These are non-motile animals attached to some solid support.
Example: Sponges
(2) Phylum Coelenterata - Cnidarians or coelenterates are multicellular, diploblastic animals with tissue grade of organisation, A gelatinous layer called mesoglea persists between the ectoderm and endoderm.
Example: Aurelia (jelly-fish)
(3) Phylum Platyhelminthes - Bilaterally symmetrical and dorsoventrally flattened animals witn a soft, leaf-like or ribbon-like thin body.
Example: Taenia Solium (pork tape-worm)
(4) Phylum Nematode - Bilaterally symmetrical, triploblastic, pseudocoelomate and unsegmented animals. Body is worm-like, cylindrical or flattened.
Example: Ascaris (round-worm)
(5) Phylum Annelida - Body triploblastic, bilaterally symmetrical, soft, elongated. vermiform and cylindrical or dorsoventrally flattened, exoskeleton absent; body is covered by a thin cuticle.
Example: Hirudinaria (Indian cattle leech)
(6) Phylum Arthropoda — Body segments are grouped into two regions — cephalothorax (head and thorax together) and abdomen, or three regions - head, thorax and abdomen. Anterior part of body forms a distinct head, bearing sense organs and brain.
Example: Palaemon (prawn)
(7) Phylum Mollusca - Body is soft, bilaterally symmetrical, with little segmentation and without appendages. The size of body varies from a microscopic to a giant form such as Octopus of upto 50 feet.
Example: Octopus (devil fish)
(8) Phylum Echinodermata - Simple animals may be a star like, spherical or elongate with body triploblastic. coelomate, unsegmented and radially symmetrical.
Example: Echinus (sea urchin)
(9) Phylum Chordate — Chordates are characterised by the following three features:
(a) a dorsal hollow, tubular nerve cord;
(b) a pliable rod called notochord that occurs ventral to nerve cord and is replaced by a bone or cartilage to form a vertebral column in vertebrates: and (c) paired gill-slits in the pharynx.
Example: Fishes