Invertebrates Flashcards
Vertebrates
An animal that has a backbone.
Invertebrates
An animal that does not have a backbone
Consumer
An organism that eats other organisms or organic matter.
Ganglion
A mass of nerve cells.
Gut
The digestive tract.
Coelom
A body cavity that contains the internal organs.
Bilateral Symmetry
The property or being divisible into symmetrical halves on either side of a unique plane.
Radical Symmetry
Symmetry around a central axis, as in a starfish or a tulip flower.
Asymmetry
Lack of equality or equivalence between parts or aspects of something; lack of symmetry.
Sponges
A primitive sedentary aquatic invertebrate with a soft porous body that is typically supported by a framework of fibers or calcareous or glassy spicules. Sponges draw in a current of water to extract nutrients and oxygen.
Cnidarians
An aquatic invertebrate animal of the phylum Cnidaria, which compromises the coelenterates.
Flatworms
A worm of a phylum that includes the planarians together with the parasitic flukes and tapeworms. They are distinguished by having a simple flattened body that lacks blood vessels, and a digestive tract that, if present, has a single opening.
Roundworms
A nematode, especially a parasite one found in the intestines of mammals.
Mollusks
An invertebrate of a large phylum that includes snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses. They have a soft, unsegmented body and live in aquatic or damp habitats, and most kinds have an external calcareous shell.
Open circulatory system
A circulatory system in which the circulatory fluid is not contained entirely within vessels; a heart pumps fluid through vessels that empty into spaces called sinuses.
