Phylum

Echinodermata
Echinoderms
 Characteristics
• Bilaterally symmetrical or pentameral
• Named after their endoskeleton of spiny
calcareous ossicles
• with water vascular system; extends
throughout their bodies as a series of canals
and tubes
• Has tube feet or podia functions in feeding,
locomotion and respiration
• Skeletons made up of interlocking
calcium carbonate plates and spine;
endoskeleton
• Pedecillaria - small, snapper-like skeletal
elements that are used to keep small
organisms from settling on its body
• Have spacious coelom
• Large gonads and complete gut
• Generally lack respiratory system (except
holothurians)
• Nervous and sensory systems are generally
poorly developed
• Reproduction is typically by external
fertilization
• Confined to marine habitats; no special
excretory or osmoregulatory systems
• Presence of mutable connective tissue; allows
the body walls to undergo rapid and reversible
changes in stiffness
Classification
1. Class Crinoidea
2. Class Asteriodea
3. Class Ophiuroidea
4. Class Echinoidea
5. Class Holothuroidea
 Class Crinoidea
• Most ancient of the echinoderms
• Lives permanently attached to the substrate
• Mouth and anus oriented towards surface
• Arms with ciliated grooves
• Exclusively filter feeders
• Have a cup-shaped central structure called the
calyx or theca
• Either male or female
• Gametes develop within the small coelomic
cavity into temporary proximal gonads; when
mature, it ruptures and sperms are released
into the sea
• Larvae that develops is a barrel-shaped and
does not feed
• Lives as a free swimming form for a short time
before it develops into a sessile stalked form
 1. Heliometra (Feather star)
• Found in coral reef slopes where they can
capture food using their feathery arms
• Ciliated ambulacral grooves
• Brightly colored when alive
• Arms have many tiny branches arranged along
the sides (pinnules)
• Usually sedentary, but can swim to another
location by undulating their arms
 2. Metacrinus (Sea Lily)
• Same morphology with feather stars
• Difference is, sea lilies are permanently
attached to substrate
 Class Asteroidea
• Typically five arms broadly connected to
central disc
• Madreporite and anus on aboral side
• Ambulacral grooves open
• Have no sharp demarcation between arms and
central body
• Move using tube feet
• Predators, feeding on sessile or slow-moving
prey
 Archaster (Starfish)
• Found in sandy areas
• Five arms broadly connected to the central
disc
• Pentamerous body plan
• Arm has a row of spines along the sides
• Madreporite and anus located on the aboral
side
• Madreporite is the external opening to water
vascular system
• Mouth located at the center of the oral disc
• Ambulacral groove contains rows of tube feet
located along oral surface of each arm
• Tube feet used for locomotion
 Linckia (Pacific blue starfish)
• Common in Philippine coral reefs
• Usually bright blue when alive
• Inhabits the tropical waters of the Indian and
Pacific oceans
• Extremely sensitive to changes in
temperature, oxygen level, and pH
• Characterized by five cylindrical arms with a
bright blue or light blue body color and yellow
tube feet
• can grow up to 30 to 40 cm across
• Linckiacyanin – gives the blue color of the
organism
• During mating process, gametes are released
freely into the water above the animals
• Fertilized eggs become larvae after couple of
days
• Asexual reproduction (in captivity)- dividing
through their disc, producing clones with
identical genetic make-up
 Acanthaster (crown-of-thorns)
• Found throughout the Indo-Pacific region
• Typically has numerous arms
• Named after its sharp venomous spines
• A voracious predator of corals
• Mouth is located on the aboral surface
• Light-sensitive eyespots at the tips of the arms
• Skeletal structure composed of tiny structures
called ossicles made of magnesium calcite
 Class Ophiuroidea
• Five arms distinctly marked off from central
disc
• Arms with interlocking “vertebrae”
• Madreporite on oral side
• No anus
• Ambulacral grooves closed
 Brittlestar or Serpent star
• Often found in coral and seagrass areas
• Have the ability to cut off their arms when
handled
• Move by sweeping their arms in a rowing
motion thus fastest moving echinoderms
• Five slender arms that are distinctly marked
off from the central disc
• No anus, have closed ambulacral grooves and
tube feet are used to gather food
 Class Echinoidea
• Ossicles fused into rigid test with spines
• Closed ambulacral grooves extending fromoral
to aboral side
 Echinometra (Burrowing sea urchin)
• Usually found in between rocks in coral reefs
• Has greenish brown spines when alive
• 5 teeth at the oral surface
• Aristotle’s lantern, a complex feeding
apparatus; used to graze on algae and other
marine vegetation
 Tripneustes
• Commercially harvested for its gonads
• Has numerous thin white and orange spines
separated by pedicellaria
• Uses pedicellaria to pick up algae fronds, and
seagrass blades to cover its body for
comouflage
 Diadema (Long-spined sea urchin)
• Found in coral and seagrass area
• Have very long sharp black spines
• Can cause a quite painful experience
• Injuries resulting from this species can be
treated with ammonia
 Leganum (Sand dollar)
• Have flattened test with very short spines
• Burrows in the sand
• In aboral surface petaloids is present where
tube feet used for respiration protrude
• Have two openings on the oral side
• Peristome- stores the mouth
• Periproct- anus
 Class Holothuroidea
• Elongation of oral-aboral axis
• Reduction of ossicles
• Oral podia modified into tentacles
• No arms
• Gut terminates in a chamber called cloaca that
opens into the anss
• Respiratory trees- system of highly branches
tubes
• Pumps water into the respiratory trees by
contrcting the cloaca, and oxygen diffuses
through from the walls of the trees into the
fluid of the body cavity
• When irritated, a large mass of tubules at the
base of the respiratory tree were shot out of
the anus
 Holothuria (Black sea cucumber)
• Edible and served as delicacy
• Tentacles surround the mouth; modified tube
feet
• Anus is sometimes inhabited by commensal
fish (Pearlfish)
• An omnivore, sifting through the sediments
with its tentacles
 Synapta
• Sea cucumber that lives in coral and seagrass
areas
• Often mistaken at first glance as a sea snake
• Have prominent tentacles
• http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Linckia_la
evigata/
• http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Acanthast
er_planci/