Non-Arthopodoa Ecdysozoans

Question 1

Phylum Nematomorpha

Answer 1

• common name: horsehair worms
• representative is: Gordius
• can grow up to 6 inches long
• wrapped up inside their host
• control their host only at night to go to a body of water
• hosts (any insects: praying mantis, crickets, and beetles) ) gets infected by drinking an egg , or ate something that had a juvenile egg
  
  • juvenile egg will burrow out of intestines and live in the abdominal cavity
• usually eats anything the host does not need to survive
• no amphids while nematodes have amphids
• when they mate the make a knot of rope with multiple male and females (dioecious)

Question 2

Phylum Onychophora

Answer 2

• common name: Velvet Worms
• representative is: Peripatus
• Soft cuticle, velvet skin
• has legs
  
  • elevate off the ground
  • tarsal claws for grabbing
• tracheal system for breathing
• has slime cannons to catch its prey
  
  • muscous is liquid in the cannon but upon air contact it becomes gelatinous and sticky
  • after catching its prey with slime, they stab with a tooth in their mouth
• Shows evolutionary stasis: does not have evolutionary adaptation
• matriarchal societies
  
  • the mother worm eats, then the other adults, then the eggs
  • will shoot cannons of slime if the matriarchal order is disturbed

Question 3

Phylum Tardigrada

Answer 3

• common name: water bears, moss piglets
• representative is: Echiniscus
• microscopic
• 8 legs, with claws for grabbing their prey
• sensory tentacles/setae for sensoring their environment
• hard cuticle
• has stylet inside their pharynx that extends to stab their prey
• Will survive most likely anything
  
  • form a dehydrated spores to form a hibernating cyst
    
    • cryptobiosis
• can grab dna out of the environment and place it into their own genome