BIO102-SYSTEMATICS

SYSTEMATICS BASED ON EVOLUTIONARY RELATIONSHIP

Learning Competencies:

1. Explain the structural and developmental characteristics and relatedness of DNA

sequences are used in classify living things.
2. Describe species diversity and cladistics, including the types of evidence and
procedures that can be used to establish evolutionary relationships.
3. Identify the unique/distinctive characteristics of a specific taxon relative to other taxa.

Unlocking Difficulties To familiarize the countless organisms, we can attempt

to understand the basic taxonomic concept and
Evolutionary Relationship refers to principles, description, nomenclature, identification,
the similarities in structure, breeding and classification of organisms based on
behavior, geographical distribution, evolutionary relationship.
chromosomes, and biochemistry of
the living organisms evolved from Earth today is home to more than 8 million different
the common ancestors. In simple species. This number is constantly changing, however,
words it means how closely related as new species are discovered at an outstanding rate,
two organisms are in evolution. Biologists called taxonomists, have devised a careful
developed scheme to organism these myriad species.

SYSTEMATICS is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present,
and the relationships among living things through time. Tracing phylogeny is one of the goals of
systematics; hence, it is considered as the study of biological diversity in an evolutionary
context. Systematics use data ranging from fossils to molecules and genes to infer evolutionary
relationship. These information enable biologists to construct a comprehensive tree of life that
will continue to be refined as additional data are collected. In scientific terms, the evolutionary
history and relationship of an organism or of group of organisms is called its phylogeny. A
phylogeny describes the relationships of an organism, such as from which organisms it is thought
to have evolve, to which species is most closely related, and not necessarily on how organisms
are similar or different.

It is widely understood that the most effective way for scientists to organize biological
diversity is according to shared evolutionary background. In this way, nor only does the grouping
result in an organized classification, it also incorporates and transmits knowledge about our
understanding of these groups evolutionary past. Although in the last century, our understanding

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of evolutionary relationships between species has greatly improved, it is by no means complete.
As new information becomes available, interactions between species and groups of organisms
continue to be updated.

This book will provide you with basic principles and concepts that will help you understand
systematics based on evolutionary relationships of organisms.

All species are related to one another. Although it appears that most have nothing in
common, they share the different characteristics of life, like for example the ability to reproduce.
There are about estimated 100 million species, or probably more. To effectively identify the
different organisms that occupy the biosphere, the variety of organisms are classified into groups
that represent evolutionary relationship.

STRUCTURAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS AND RELATEDNESS

OF DNA SEQUENCES
Scientist may use sequence knowledge to decide which stretches of DNA contain genes
and which stretches carry regulatory instructions, turn on or off genes. In addition, and most
importantly, sequence data can highlight changes in the gene that may cause disease.
Not unexpectedly, biologist often classify organism in various groups, often by assessing
the degrees of obvious resemblance and distinction they can see. The premise is that the higher
the degree at physical similarity, the closer the biological relationship is.
Upon discovery of an unknown organism, researchers begin their classification by
searching for anatomical features that seem to have the same function as those seen in other
organisms. The next step is to determine whether or not similarities are related to an individual
genetic formation or to a descent from a single ancestor. If this is the case, the two animals are
potentially closely related and can be placed in the same or near biological groups.
Living organisms can usually be categorized on the basis of two major parameters: their
DNA and reproductive behaviour. However these mere not always the criterion for classification.
Early biologist and taxonomists were originally categorized solely on the basis of the superficial
nature of the organism: those that appeared the same were assumed to be the same genus. There
are apparent issues with this approach, such as relatively bland. This differentiation is known as
sexual dimorphism and is very widespread in animal kingdoms. Looking alone, one would
consider a male peacock as a separate species from a female, but they are clearly different sexes.
All living organisms are classified into groups based on very basic, shared characteristics.
Organisms within each group are then further divided into smaller groups. Characteristics such
as appearance, reproduction, mobility, and functionality are just a few ways in which living
organisms are grouped together.

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Anatomy and Embryology
Anatomical features shared between organisms (including ones that are visible only
during embryonic development can indicate a shared evolutionary ancestry. There are more
closely related species groups with more closely related species groups with more recent
common ancestors. There are more closely related species groups with more recent common
ancestors, and each group would appear to share the characteristics that were present in their last
common ancestors, and each group would appear to share the characteristics that were present in
their last common ancestor. If a particular physical feature, such as a complex bone structure or a
body plan, is shared by two or more animals, they may all have inherited this feature from a
common ancestor. It is said that physical characteristics shared due to evolutionary history (a
common ancestor) are homologous. To give one example, the forelimbs of whales, humans, and
birds are homologous structures. Not all physical traits that appear identical are indicators of
shared ancestors. Instead, some physical similarities are analogous: in different species, they
develop independently because the organisms lived in similar selective pressures.
Molecular Biology
Similarities may reflect shared evolutionary ancestry between biological molecules.
Similarities and variations in various species between the same genes (that is a pair of
homologous genes) will help us decide how the organisms are closely related.
Genetics
It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that we had any clear understanding of
what DNA is, much less of a gene, much less of the importance of genetics in classification. We
now recognize that DNA is a model molecule that contains the genetic code of the organism.
The field of genetics includes the study of genes, segments of DNA that encode unique
features, habits, or other characteristics of species.
We recognize genes are inherited which means they’re passed from parent to child. We
also recognize that do not actually express themselves while they are present. As far as grouping
is concerned, We know that members of the same species have about the same DNA, even
though there is a subtle variety in the genes; for example, genes of different hair colours suggest
that humans may have brown, purple, blond or red hair, and they are all members of the same
species are to each other. By learning genetics and DNA, we will get the better understanding
about how organisms are interrelated and, thus, how to identify them. However, the genetic code
of species is not set. It’s changing overtime! That’s why we all ought to be part of evolution.
All living organisms share genetic material (DNA), identical genetic codes, and the same
basic gene expression mechanism at the most basic gene expression mechanism at the most basic
level (transcription and translation). If the same gene is found in two animals, it is because they
inherited it from a shared ancestor. In general, the more DNA similarities between the two
species in homologous genes, the more closely related the species is.
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HISTORY OF CLASSIFICATION

Greek scholars Hippocrates (460-377 BC), often referred to as ‘Father of Medicine’ and
Aristotle (384-322 BC), often referred to as ‘Father of Biology’, ‘Father of Zoology’, ‘Father of
Philosophy’ divided animals into four major groups like insects, birds, fishes and whales.

Aristotle’s and Plato’s pupil Theophrastus (370-285 BC), often referred to as ‘Father of
Botany’, in his book Plantarum, classified plants on the basis of their habit, form and texture into
four categories-trees, shrubs, undershrubs and herbs. He gave name and description of 480 plants
in his book.
Pliny the Elder (28-79 A.D) introduced the first system of artificial classification. His
book, Historia Naturalis, mentions over 1,000 economic plants.
In the late 17th century, John Ray, an English naturalist coined the term species for a
group of morphologically similar organisms and also tried to differentiate between genus and
species. The terms monocotyledons and dicotyledons were also coined by him. He described
more than 18600 plants and animals in his Historia Generalis Plantarum.
Another significant period for taxonomy was that of Linnaeus. Carolus Linnaeus
(17071778), a Swedish naturalist, often referred to as ‘Father of Taxonomy’ published Systema
Naturae (1758) and described 4326 species of animals. His treatise, Species of Plantarum (1753)
contained description of 5900 species of plants and these were arranged according to his system
of classification based on sexual characters. Linnaeus also introduced a system of nomenclature
of plants and animals known as the Binomial Nomenclature.

NEW SYSTEMATICS (NEOSYSTEMATICS, BIOSYSTEMATICS)

It is a concept of systematics that considers a species to be the product of evolution. It

takes into consideration all the known characteristics of organisms and all the known evidences
from different fields or biology. The concept of new systematics was developed by Julian
Huxley in 1940. The important features are:
a. Numerical taxonomy is also called phenetic or adansonian taxonomy
(Adanson, 1763). Numerical taxonomy deals with statistical analysis of the
traits. All the traits are given equal weightage.
b. Alpha (α) taxonomy term was coined by Turril (1938). It deals with the
collection and identification of organisms on the basis of gross morphology,
compilation of flora and monographs.
c. Flora is a book which has the list of plants in a locality. e.g., Flora of British
India (J.D. Hooker). Flora is written by using two kinds of keys (a) indented
(b) Bracketed. In indented key the contrasting pairs of characters are separated
but in bracketed key they are written together.

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BASIC IN CLASSIFICATION

Classification means the ordering of organisms into organisms into groups. The branch of
science that deals with the study of principles and procedures of biological classification is called
taxonomy (Gk. taxis – arrangements, nomos – law, coined by A.P. de Candolle, 1813).
Nomenclature (Latin, nomen: name; calare: call): it is the science of providing distinct
and proper names to organisms as per the established universal practices and rules so that they
can be easily recognized and differentiated from others.
Classification: Classification is the arrangement of organisms into groups on the basis of
their affinities or relationships. It involves the placing of a kind of organisms or a group of
different kinds of organisms in particular categories depending upon the system of classification
but in conformity with nomenclature system.
Identification: Identification is determining the correct place in a system of classification
and finding out the correct name of an organism. It is done with the help of keys. This is carried
out for an organism determining its similarity with an already known organism. Suppose there
are three plants say a,b,c. All represent different species. Another plant say, d resembles b. The
recognition of the plant d as identical to the already known plant b is its identification.

NOMENCLATURE

The science of giving names to living beings is called nomenclature. Two types of names have
given to organisms, common and scientific.

Polynomial Nomenclature

Before 1750 (mediaval periods), scholars used to add a series of descriptive words to
designate a particular species. This can be illustrated with the example of Caryophyllum. The
name given was Caryophyllum saxatilis folis gramineus umbellatus corymbis meaning.
Caryophyllum growing a rocks having grass like leaves and umbellate corymb arrangement of
flowers. Such long names cannot be easily remembered.
Binomial Nomenclature

The scientific or technical names were developed by Linnaeus (Philosophica Botanica,

1751). The technical names recognized internationally are the ones given by Linnaeus in the 10 th
edition of his book Systema Naturae published in 1758. The system developed by Linnaeus is
known as Binomial Nomenclature. Binomial nomenclature is the system of scientific naming
using ‘genus’ as the first part and ‘species’ as the second part, e.g., Mangifera indica (mango),
Apis mellifera (honey bee), etc.

Trinomial Nomenclature

Occasionally, three words are also used for naming the organisms, especially the animals.
These include generic, specific and sub-species part, for example, the modern man is called
Homo sapiens sapiens. Other examples are Puccinia graminis tritici, Acacia nilotica indica, etc.

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Rules of Binomial Nomenclature

1. A scientific name consists of two words, first genus and second species. They should not
have less than three letters and more than twelve letters.
2. The generic name is always written first, which is like a noun having its first letter in
capital form. The generic name is always unique for a living organism.
3. The specific name is written after the generic name, which is like an adjective having its
first letter in small form. It can be single or compound (e.g., Hibiscus rosa sinensis).
4. The gender of the specific name follows the gender of the generic name, e.g., Mangifera
indica, Tamarindus indica.
5. The biological or scientific name is always printed in italics whereas it is underlined
while handwritten. This is done to make the scientific name distinct from text.
6. The two – word scientific names are generally followed by the name of the discoverer or
author. The author’s name can be full or abbreviated (i.e., Mangifera indica L., Homo
sapiens Linn., Cycas circinalis Linnaeus). Author’s name is not italicized.
7. No names are recognized prior to those used by Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10 th Edition of
Systema Naturae.
8. The names of sub families and families should be based on the name of the type genus
e.g., family Graminae is changed to Poaceae, Compositae changed to Asteraceae.
9. When a species is transferred or revised, the name of the original author is retained but in
parenthesis, e.g., Syzygium cumuni (Linn.) Skeels, Albizzia lebbeck (Linn.) Benth.
10. In case an organism has been given more than one name, the earlier legitimate one is
recognized to be valid (law of priority).

Taxonomic hierarchy

The main aim of a taxonomic study is to assign organism an appropriate place in a systematic
framework of classification. This framework is called taxonomic hierarchy by which the
taxonomic groups are arranged in definite order, from higher to lower categories, depending
upon their relative dimensions.
It is also called Linnaean hierarchy because it was first proposed by Linnaeus. Linnaeus
first used only five categories - Class, Order, Genus, Species and Variety. The last one was
discarded and three added so that now there are seven obligate categories i.e., Kingdom,
Division or Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species. This sequence may be
remembered by memorizing the sentence “Keep pots clean or family gets sick”. The botanists
use Division in place of Phylum as a category in the classification of plant kingdom. In order to
make taxonomic position of specifies more precise, certain subcategories and super categories
have been added to this list and they are called intermediate categories e.g., sub kingdom, super
phylum or super division, sub division, super class, sub class, super order, sub order, super
family, sub family, tribe, sub species, variety, etc.
Both in animals and plant kingdoms, the lowest category is Species and highest is the
Kingdom. The placement of group of individuals or organism in species, genus and up to phyla

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or divisions is determined by the similarities in their characters and the relationships. The
categories in the hierarchy are thus in ascending order. As we go from the lowest rank Species
towards Kingdom the number of similar character decreases.

Taxon (Gk. Taxis: arrangement)

The word taxon signifies a taxonomic group of any rank which represents the real biological
organisms included in a category like Maize (species), Roses (genus), grasses (family), conifers
(order), dicots(class), seed plants (division) etc. The term was introduced by Adolf Meyer (1926)
for animal groups. Mayr (1964) defined taxon to be a taxonomic group of any rank that is
sufficiently distinct to be worthy of being assigned to a definite category.

There is some confusion in the use of taxon and category. Bryophyte is a taxon while
division is a category. Similarly Zea mays is a taxon while species is a category. While category
represents an abstracts term, taxon represents the real organisms.

OBLIGATE CATEGORIES

The obligate categories used in classification are explained below:

Species

Species occupies a key position in classification. It is the lowest taxonomic category. It is a

basic unit for understanding taxonomy as well as evolution. It is a natural population of
individuals or group of populations which resemble one another in all essential morphological
and reproductive characters, carry same type and amount of genetic material so that they are able
to breed freely among themselves under natural conditions in order to produce fertile offspring.
The species is also called genetically distinct and reproductively isolated natural population e.g.,
mango (Mangifera indica), Potato (Solanum tubrosum), etc. in this case, indica, tuberosum; are
species of genera Mangifera, Solanum respectively.

As per rules of binomial nomenclature, a species can be named only if it is assigned to a genus.
A species may have subgroups, called subspecies or varieties, showing certain distinct features
of their own.
Genus

It is the first higher category above the level of species. It is a group of species which are
related and have less characters in common as compared to species. For example, potato
(Solanum tuberosum) and brinjal (S. melongena) though they constitute different species, belong
to the same genus Solanum. Similarly, lion (Pathera leo), leopard (P. pardus) tiger (P. tigris) and
jaguar (P. onca) have several common features and are included in the same genus Panthera.
A genus may have a single species (monotypic), e.g., Homo sapiens, or it may have several
species (polytypic), e.g., Panthera, Solanum etc.
All the species of a genus have a number of common features called correlated characters.
The close resemblance indicates a common ancestry for all the species of a genus.

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Family

Family is represented by a group of related genera that are more similar to each other
than with the genera of other families. All the genera of a family resemble one another in certain
correlated characters indicating a common ancestry. The genera like Solanum, Petunia, Datura,
Atropa, etc. based on the similarities are placed in the family Solanaceae.

Order

Order is an assemblage of families resembling one another in a few characters. These

characters are less similar as compared to many genera put in a family. Families like Solanaceae
and Convolvulaceae are put in the order Polimoniales on the basis of some related floral
characters.

Class

Class represents organisms of related species. For example, class Mammalia has a
number of orders like Carnivora, Rodentia, Insectivora, etc.

Phylum/division

Phylum or Division consists of one to several related classes having some similar correlated
characters. The main difference between phylum and division is that phylum is a classification
level of the animal kingdom whereas division is an alternative classification level to the phylum
in the kingdom plantae and fungi.

Kingdom

In general, it includes all organisms that share a set of distinguishing common characters.
This is the highest category of biological classification. Plants are put in Plant kingdom and
animals are included in the Animal Kingdom. R.H. Whittaker (1969) has recognized five
kingdoms of organisms – Monera, Protista, Fungi Plantae (Metaphyta) and Animalia (Metazoa).

Early attempts for classification

The earliest systems of classification of organisms were simple and based on one or two
characters. The criteria used for grouping were also very simple. Aristotle and other Greek
philosophers divided living organisms into two groups, plants and animals. Aristotle also divided
plants into 3 groups; herbs, shrubs and trees. He also divided animals into two groups, one
having red blood (Enaima) and the others without red blood (Anaima).

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System of Classification

Three major systems of classification for different animals and plants in use are: Artificial
System; Natural System; Modern or Phylogenetic System.

1. Artificial System

A system of classification based on one or a few superficial characters chosen

arbitrarily is called an artificial system of classification. No weightage was given to natural
as well as phylogenetic relationships. This was prevalent before and also during the period
of Linnaeus. Even before him, Aristotle had also classified organisms on the basis of their
habitat. The habitat was recognized as a criterion to group animals into land, air and water.
Some of the artificial systems are given below:

Theophrastus (370-285 B.C.), a Greek botanist, classified plants into four groups
herbs, under-shrubs, shrubs and trees on the basis of their habit.
Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) distinguished animals into flight and nonflight ones.
Flight animals included bats, birds and insects. He divided plants into herbs, shrubs,
under-shrubs, tree, vines, succulents, aquatic and terrestrial.
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), a Swedish naturalist classified plants into 24
groups on the basis of sexual characters. He took only the number, length and union of
stamens and carpels into consideration. For example, he proposed classes Monandria (1
stamen), Diandria (2 stamens).
Artificial system is easier to practice in the field; however, it has several drawbacks
in this system of classification that are follows:

a) It lacks the natural relationship amongst the organism.

b) Organisms do not show a clear cut evolutionary line.
c) It leads to heterogeneous of unrelated organisms. In this system many
closely related species are classified in separate groups and many
unrelated species are placed together in one group. For example, whales,
fishes are placed in one group and insects, birds and bats are put together in
flying animals.

2. Natural System

This system is based on natural affinities of plants, in this system all available
information about the constant and natural characters of plants are used as a basis of
classification. Natural classification is mainly based on form relationships realizing all
information available at the time of collection of plants. The natural systems remained
dominant before the idea of evolution was accepted. However, evolutionary characters are
not considered.

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 A.L. de Jussieu (1686-1758) attempted a natural classification in his Genera Plantarum
(1789). He laid emphasis on number of cotyledons, presence or absence of petals and
stamens.
A.P. de Candolle in 1819, published a system of classification in his book Theorie
elementaire de la botanique. He was first to use the characteristic of vascular tissues in the
classification of plants and recognized two group of plants Vasculares: (Vascular plants
with cotelydons), Cellulares: (Plants without vascular bundles or cotyledons).
George Bentham (1800-1884) and Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) worked
together at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England and proposed the most important and the
last of the natural system for classification of seed plants. The system presented by them
was published in Latin language in their treaties Genera Plantarum which appeared in
three volumes. In these volumes, they have described some 97,205 seed plants according to
their classification. An important feature of their classification is that they have given
Gymnosperms a rank equal to Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons. Bentham and Hooker’s
system of classification is used by most of the well-known herbaria of the world.
Natural system of classification not only brings out natural relationships but also
studies the evolutionary tendencies and phylogeny with the help of all the available data
including fossils.
3. Phylogenetic System

The evolutionary history of a group of organisms is called phylogeny. The system

of classification reflecting the evolutionary sequence as well as the genetic
interrelationships of organism is called phylogenetic system. The term phylogeny was
introduced by Lamarck but the concept was established by Ernest Haeckel (1866).

Unlike a taxonomic classification diagram, we can read a phylogenetic tree like a

map of evolutionary history. Many phylogenetic trees have a single lineage at the base
representing a common ancestor. Scientists call such trees rooted, which means there
is a single ancestral lineage (typically drawn from the bottom or left) to which all
organisms represented in the diagram relate. Notice in the rooted phylogenetic tree that
the three domains— Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya—diverge from a single point and
branch off. The small branch that plants and animals (including humans) occupy in this
diagram shows how recent and miniscule these groups are compared with other
organisms. Unrooted trees do not show a common ancestor but do show relationships
among species.

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 Biosci.gatech.edu

In a rooted tree, the branching indicates evolutionary relationships. The point where a split
occurs, a branch point, represents where a single lineage evolved into a distinct new one.
We call a lineage that evolved early from the root that remains unbranched a basal taxon.
We call two lineages stemming from the same branch point sister taxa. A branch with
more than two lineages is a polytomy and serves to illustrate where scientists have not
definitively determined all of the relationships. Note that although sister taxa and polytomy
do share an ancestor, it does not mean that the groups of organisms split or evolved from
each other. Organisms in two taxa may have split at a specific branch point, but neither
taxon gave rise to the other.

biosci.gatech.edu

NUMBER OF KINGDOMS

Various schemes dividing the organisms into two, three, four and five kingdoms have been
proposed from time to time.

Two Kingdom System of Classification

Linnaeus (1707-1778) divided the living organisms into two kingdoms: Plantae and
Animalia. Each kingdom was split up into phyla or divisions. Each phylum or division was
divided into classes. A class is sub divided into orders. An order is broken up into still smaller
groups, the families. Each family comprised of many genera and in each genus were included
one or numerous species. Drawbacks of Two Kingdom Classification

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 Higher organisms can easily be differentiated as plants and animals, but lower organisms
can’t be easily placed either in plant or animal kingdom, because these possess dual characters of
both kingdoms. For example, Euglena resembles plants in having autotrophic mode of nutrition
as it contains chlorophyll pigment. However, like animals it is motile bearing flagellum and lacks
cell wall. Sponges resemble plants in being fixed, having irregularly branched body. They have
holozoic mode of nutrition and excrete nitrogenous waste materials like animals.
The two kingdom system takes unicellular and multicellular organisms together. Even
unicellular organisms like bacteria were considered as plants. Unicellular plants (diatoms,
dinoflagellates) and animals (protozoans) resemble each other in level of organization and
reproduction by fission but placed in two separate kingdoms. Fungi are included in kingdom
plantae in spite of the fact they lack chlorophyll, cellulosic cell wall and are either saprophyte or
parasite unlike typical plants. Some of the organisms like viruses and lichens can’t be placed in
either of these two kingdoms because of peculiar characteristics. Viruses lack protoplasm and
exhibit characters of living organisms only inside a living cell. Lichens are peculiar in being
association of an alga and a fungus having neither distinct plants and animals.
Three Kingdom System of Classification

Ernest Haeckel (1866), a German zoologist suggested that a third kingdom, Protista be
created to include those unicellular microorganisms that are typically neither plants nor animals.
He included bacteria, algae, fungi and protozoa under Protista. Three kingdoms according to
Haeckel are Protista, Plantae and Animalia. This solves the problem of assigning suitable
kingdom to the organisms which have similarities with both plants and animals. However,
certain drawbacks of two kingdom system, persist in this system also.
 Acellular and multicellular organisms are kept together in Protista. Bacteria
and fungi have been grouped with unrelated organisms.

Four Kingdom System of Classification

Copeland (1956) suggested that all prokaryotes i.e., bacteria, cyanobacteria

etc. be placed under kingdom Monera (Mychota). According to Copeland, four
kingdoms are Monera (Mychota), Protista, Plantae and Animalia. Protista are
single celled eukaryotic organisms. Fungi continued to remain with plants. The
main drawback of this system is that fungi are not properly placed.

Five Kingdom System of Classification

According to Robert H. Whittaker (1969), an American ecologist, non-chlorophyllous

heterotrophic plants to be classified under kingdom Fungi. Five kingdoms in which the living
world is divided are Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae (Plants) and Animalia (Animals).
The classification is based mainly on following three main criteria.
a. Complexity of cell structure: prokaryotic or eukaryotic
b. Complexity of cellular organization: unicellular to multicellular

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 c. Mode of nutrition: autotrophic or heterotrophic
Cladistics
Cladistics is a method that classifies organisms based on the order in which
different evolutionary lines branch off from one another. It was first proposed in
the 1950’s Willi Hennig, a German Entomologist. Subsequently, many
other scientists have made Hennig’s original method practicable by developing
various cladistics numerical algorithms, some of which are very sophisticated.
Cladistics is currently the most widely used method of classification.
One might reasonably ask: how can cladistics possibly determine the
branching points of different evolutionary lines, given that we have a complete
fossil record and often have only living species for constructing a classification
system? The answer is that cladistics relies upon the fact that all new species
evolve by descent with modification. It does not use shared primitive
characteristics as a basis for classification, since these may lost or modified
through the course of evolution. To establish which characters are primitive and
which are derived, cladistics classification generally relies upon one or more out
groups’ species hypothesized to the primitive ancestors of all organisms under
study. Other criteria include life style and the phylogenetic relationships.
Evolution is reflected through increase in complexity of cell, as well as in the organism.
The mode of nutrition also diverged in the multicellular kingdom viz plantae, Fungi and
Animalia. The ecological role of these three multicellular kingdoms was also established as
producers, decomposers and consumers, respectively.
The organisms, according to the Five Kingdom System, are re-distributed into additional
three kingdoms while retaining the two kingdoms Plantae and Animalia. All multicellular,
mobile and heterotrophic organisms were included in the kingdom Plantae. Some of the
unicellular algae and protozoans were taken out from plant and animal kingdoms and were
included in a separate kingdom Protista. All bacteria and multicellular blue green algae with
prokaryotic cells were transferred from kingdom plantae to a new Kingdom Monera.
In the Five Kingdom Classification it is thought that the Monera has given rise to the
Protista, which gave rise to the remaining three kingdoms of multicellular organisms, viz. Fungi,
Plantae and Animalia.
The earliest classification systems recognized only two kingdoms of living things: animals
and plants. But as biologists discovered microorganisms and learned more about other
organisms, they added kingdoms in recognition of fundamental differences discovered among
organisms. Most biologists now use a six – kingdom system proposed by Carl Woese of the
University of Illinois.

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 In this system, four kingdoms consist of eukaryotic organisms. The most familiar
kingdoms, Animalia and Plantae, contain only organisms that are multicellular during most of
their life cycle. The kingdom Fungi contains multicellular forms and single- celled yeast, which
are thought to have multicellular ancestors. Fundamental differences divide these three
kingdoms. Plants are mainly stationary, but some have motile sperm; fungi have no motile cells;
animals are mainly motile. Animals ingest foods, plants manufacture it, and fungi digest it by
means of secreted extracellular enzymes. Each of these kingdom probably evolved from a
different singlecelled ancestor.
The large number of unicellular eukaryotes are arbitrarily grouped into a single kingdom
called Protista. This kingdom includes the algae, all of which are unicellular during important
parts of their life cycle.
The remaining two kingdoms, Archaebacteria and Eubacteria, consist of prokaryotic
organisms, which are vastly different from all other living things.

Domains

As biologist have learned more about the archaebacteria, it has become increasingly clear
that this ancient group is very different from all other organisms. When the full genomic DNA
sequences of an archaebacterium and a eubacterium were compared in 1996, the differences
proved striking. Archaebacteria are as different from eubacteria as eubacteria are from
eukaryotes. Recognizing this, biologists are increasingly adopting a classification of living
organisms that organizes three domains, a taxonomic level higher than kingdom.
Archaebacteria are in one domain, eubacteria in a second, and eukaryotes in the third.
THE VARIETY OF ORGANISMS
According to the fossil record, the most primitive organisms known- the bacteria and the
cyanobacteria –date back over 3 billion years, the first land plants and insects over 400 million
years, the first birds and mammals over 180 million years. Since the simplest forms of life arose,
innumerable different kinds of organisms, increasingly complex and adapted to widely varying
environments, have evolved.
Living things are classified on the basis of the evolutionary relationships thought to exist
among them, i.e. on their commonality of ancestry. Since the relationships are often far from
clear, a number of different systems of classification are possible. The one used in this book
recognizes six broad categories, or kingdoms: Eubacteria, Archaebacteria, Protista, Fungi,
Plantae, and Animalia.

Kingdom Eubacteria (“true bacteria”)

Early studies of bacteria were largely of species belonging to a group now called the
eubacteria (‘’true bacteria’’), all of which are rather similar in their basic characteristics. But
later other groups of organisms with quite different properties also came to be regarded as

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bacteria. Hence the Schizomycetes now constitute an assemblage of diverse forms that are
probably not very closely related. The bacteria could easily be separated into seven or more
divisions that would be as distinct from one another.
The eubacteria are the most abundant organisms on earth. There are more living eubacteria
in your mouth than there are mammals living on earth. Although too tiny to see with the unaided
eye, eubacteria play critical roles throughout the biosphere. They extract from air all the nitrogen
used by organisms, and play key roles in cycling carbon and sulfur. Much of the world’s
photosynthesis is carried out by eubacteria. Unique to bacteria is the cell wall that contains the
material called peptidoglycan. Key bacterial characteristics used in classifying bacteria were:
Motile or nonmotile, Unicellular or multicellular, and Formation of spores or driving by
transverse binary fission.

Bacterial cells
Most bacteria are very tiny, far smaller than the individual cells in the body of the
multicellular plant and animal. They always contain RNA and DNA; they have ribosomes; they
always possess integrated multienzymes systems; they can generate ATP and use it in the
synthesis of many other organic compounds, and they provide both the raw material and all the
metabolic machinery for their own reproduction.
Bacterial cells are relatively simple in structure. They are prokaryotes whose cell lack
nuclear membrane. Within the cytoplasm are the ribosomes, and a nuclear region (nucleotide)
containing a single circular chromosome. Most bacterial cells are surrounded by a semirigid cell
wall, inside of which a cell membrane which may have infoldings is that provide additional
membranous surfaces for enzymatic activities. Bacterial cell walls, like those of plants, protect
the cell both from physical damage and from osmotic disruption. But the walls of bacteria differ,
significantly in composition from those of plants. The walls of eukaryotic cells are made of
cellulose and related compounds (or of chitin, in fungi), whereas those of prokaryotic cells are
made of murein, a huge polymer composed of amino acids. Muramic acid, one of the
constituents of murein, never occurs in the walls of eukaryotic cells. This important difference in
chemical composition between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells is the basis for the selective
activity of some drugs, such as penicillin. Penicillin is toxic to growing bacteria because it
inhibits formation of murein, and thus interferes with bacterial multiplications.
Depending on the cell wall thickness, eubacteria can be divided into two categories: gram
positive and gram negative bacteria. The peptidoglycan layer of gram positive bacteria binds
with the gram stain, giving positive results. The cell wall structure of gram negative bacteria is
more complex than gram positive bacterial cell walls and incapable of binding with gram stain.
Differences in the relative amounts of certain components in the walls of different types of
bacteria make the cells show characteristics reactions to a variety of stains. Since there are few
visible structural characters that can be used in identifying bacteria, diagnostic staining is an
important laboratory tool. .

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 The cells of most bacteria are classified according to their shapes, the most common are
rodlike bacilli, spheres called cocci, and the corkscrew – shaped spirilla. Individual eubacterium
is 0.55 μm in diameter. When cell division takes place in bacteria, the daughter cells of some
species remain attached and form characteristics groupings. Thus cells of the acterium that
causes pneumonia are often found in pairs (diplococcic), while others form grapelike clusters
(staphylococci). Each cell in a diplococcal, streptococcal, and staphylococcal grouping is an
independent organism.
Some of the eubacteria (mostly rod-shaped ones) can form special resting cells called
endospores, which can withstand conditions that would quickly kill the normal active cell. Each
small endospore develops inside the bacterial cell and contains DNA plus a limited amount of
other essential materials from that cell. It is enclosed in an almost indestructible spore coat. Once
the endospore has fully developed, the remainder of the cell in which it formed may disintegrate.
Because of their very low water content and resistant coats, spores of many species can survive
an hour or more of boiling or an hour in a hot oven. They can be frozen for decades or perhaps
for centuries without harm. They can survive long periods of drying. And they can even
withstand treatment with strong disinfectant solutions. When conditions again become
favourable, the spores may germinate, giving rise to normal bacterial cell that resume growing
and dividing. Fortunately, relative few disease- causing bacteria can form endospores. The
organisms causing tetanus, gas gangrene. Botulism (a type of food poisoning), and anthrax are
examples of pathogenic spore- formers.
Surrounding the cell walls of some bacteria are sticky capsules or slime layers, composed
of polysaccharide or protein. Capsules help certain disease – causing bacteria escape detection
by their victim’s immune system. Slime layers allow the bacteria that cause tooth decay to
adhere in masses to the smooth surface of a tooth. This slime forms the basis of dental plaque.
Hairlike projections call pili cover some bacteria. Pili are made of protein and serve to attach the
bacterium to other cells. Some bacteria contain flagella which may either cover the cell or form a
tuft at one end. It can rotate rapidly, propelling the bacterium through its liquid environment.
Flagella allow bacteria to disperse into new habitats, to migrate toward nutrients, and to leave
unfavorable environments.

Bacterial reproduction
Bacteria reproduce asexually by a simple form of cell division called fission which
produces two cells that are identical. Under ideal conditions, bacteria divide rapidly, doubling
their numbers about every 20 minutes. If all the descendants of a cell of this type survived and
divided every 20 minutes, the single initial cell would have about 500, 000 descendants at the
end of 6 and a half hours, and by the end of 25 hours the total weight of its descendants would be
nearly 2, 000, 000 kg. Though increases of this magnitude do not actually occur, the real
increases are frequently huge which helps explain the rapidity with which food sometimes spoils
or a disease develops. As we have already seen, the bacterial cell lacks a membrane- bounded
nucleus, but does have a nuclear region, called a nucleotide. Electron microscopy reveals genes

16 | P a g e
in the nucleotide arranged in sequence along a single circular chromosome composed primarily
of DNA.
Though the reproductive process itself is asexual, genetic recombination does occur
occasionally, at least in some bacteria. Three mechanisms of recombination are known:
conjugation, in which two bacterial cells come to lie very close to one another and a
cytoplasmic connection forms between them. Through which part of a chromosome is
transferred; transformation, in which a living cell picks up fragments of DNA released into the
medium from dead cells; and transduction, in which fragments of DNA are carried from one
cell to another by viruses.

Bacterial nutrition
Most bacteria are absorptive heterotrophs, being either saprophytes or parasites. Like
animals, the majority of these bacteria are aerobic; they cannot live without molecular oxygen,
which they use in the respiratory breakdown of carbohydrates and other food materials to carbon
dioxide and water.
To some bacteria that obtain their energy by fermentation, however oxygen is lethal.
Such bacteria are called obligate anaerobes. Botulism, is an obligate anaerobes; it grows well in
highly closed food containers that were not properly sterilized before being filled.
Another bacteria called facultative anaerobes, can live either in the presence or in the
absence of molecular oxygen. Bacteria differ considerably in their nutrient requirements. No
matter how unfavourable an environment appears, some species of bacteria are capable of living
there. Their tremendous nutritional versatility allows them to fill a variety of niches. The
differences in the amino acid and the vitamin requirements of various bacteria, and in their ways
of utilizing nutrients, provide valuable diagnostic characters for workers attempting to identify
unknown specimens. Samples of the organisms to be identified are placed on a variety of nutrient
media and cultured at standard temperatures. By determining on which of the media the
organisms will grow and on which they will not, and, when they grow, by comparing the colour,
texture, and other characteristics of the colony they produce with the data established for known
species. It is often possible to assign the unknown organisms to the proper group or even to the
proper species.
As we said, most bacteria are heterotrophs, but some are either chemosynthetic or
photosynthetic autotrophs. The photosynthetic process in bacteria differs markedly from that in
higher plants. Photosynthetic bacteria lack chlorophyll a the chief light-trapping pigment in
higher plants. And unlike higher plants, bacteria do not use water as the electron donor in
photosynthesis and therefore do not produce molecular oxygen. Indeed, bacterial photosynthesis
is a strictly anaerobic process; it cannot take place in the presence of oxygen. The photosynthetic
pigment are located on membranes, and are not enclosed within chloroplasts. Some bacteria are
chemosynthetic, they make use of inorganic materials like sulphur, nitrogen, and iron instead of
using light to manufacture food.

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 The astonishing diversity of energy- yielding metabolic pathways seen in bacteria—greater
by far than in all other forms of life combined – is interpreted by many investigators are
reflecting the variety of evolutionary ‘’experiments’’ with metabolism during the long period
when prokaryotes were the only living things on the earth.

Major Groups of Eubacteria

Actinomycetes – gram – positive bacteria. Form branching filaments and produce spores;
often mistaken for fungi. Produce many commonly used antibiotics, including streptomycin and
tetracycline. One of the most common types of soil bacteria; also common in dental plaque.
Example:
http://tolweb.org.images.eubacteria

Chemoautotrophs – bacteria able to obtain their energy from inorganic chemicals. Most
extract chemical energy from reduced gases such as H2S (hydrogen sulfide), NH3 (ammonia),
and CH4 (methane). Play a key role in the nitrogen cycle. Example:

hhtp://tolweb.org.images.eubacteria

Cyanobacteria – a form of photosynthetic bacteria common in both marine and

freshwater environments. Deeply pigmented; often responsible for “blooms” in polluted
waters.
Example:

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 http://tolweb.org.images.eubacteri

Enterobacteria – gram – negative, rod – shaped bacteria. Do not form spores; usually aerobic
heterotrophs; cause many important diseases, including bubonic plague and cholera. Example:

http://tolweb.org.images.eubacteria
Gliding and budding bacteria – gram - negative bacteria. Exhibit gliding motility by
secretingslimy polysaccharides over which masses of cells glide; some groups form
upright multicellular structures carrying spores called fruiting bodies. Example:
Myxobacteria and Chondromyces.

hhtp://tolweb.org.images.eubacteria

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Pseudomonads – gram – negative heterotrophic rods with pollar flagella. Very common form of
soil bacteria; also contain many important plant pathogens. Example: Pseudomonas

hhtp://tolweb.org.images.eubacteria
Rickettsias and chlamydias – small, gram – negative intracellular parasites. Rickettsia life cycle
involves both mammals and arthropods such as fleas and ticks; Rickettsia are responsible for
many
fatal human diseases, including typhus (Rickettsia prowazekii) and Rocky Mountain spotted
fever. Chlamydical infections are one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases.
Example:

hhtp://tolweb.org.images.eubacteria
Spirochaetes – long, coil – shaped cells. Common in aquatic environments; a parasitic
form is responsible for the disease syphilis. Example: Treponema

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 hhtp://tolweb.org.images.eubacteria

Kingdom Archaebacteria
The term archaeabacteria (Greek,
archaio, ancient) refers to the
ancient origin of this group of
bacteria, which most likely diverged
very early from the eubacteria. They
are unicellular prokaryotes and
belong to the kingdom, Archaea.
Remember that prokaryotes do not
have a nucleus that surrounds their
Chromosomes. They were first
discovered in 1977 and
classified as bacteria. Most archaebacteria
byjus.com/biology/archaebacteria
appear like bacteria, when observed under the microscope. However, they are quite
different from bacteria and eukaryotic organisms. Today archaebacteria inhabit some of
the most extreme environments on earth. Through a diverse group, all archaebacteria share
certain key characteristics. Their cell walls lack the peptidoglycan characteristic of other
bacteria. They possess very unusual lipids, and characteristics ribosomal RNA sequences.
Some of their genes possess introns, unlike those bacteria.
Archaebacteria are heterotrophic and some are autotrophic. They can be chemotrophs, which
means they make their own food from chemicals around them. Archaebacteria are spheres, rods,
plates, spiral, flat or square shaped. Individual archaebacterium is 0.115 μm in diameter.
The archaebacterial are grouped into three general categories: methanogens,
extremophiles, nonextreme archaebacteria.
1. Methanogens
Obtain their energy by using hydrogen gas
(H2) to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) to
methane gas (CH4). They are strict
anaerobes, poisoned by even traces of
oxygen. They live in swamps, marshes,
and the intestines of mammals.

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 Methanogens release about 2 billion tons of methane gas into the atmosphere each year.
Example of
byjus,.com/biology/archaebacteria
methanogens: Methanocal dococcus jannaschii, Methanopyrus khandleri.

2. Extremophiles
Are able to grow under conditions that seem extreme to us.
• Thermophiles (“heat
lovers”) live in very
hot places, typically
from 60○C to 80○C.
Many thermophiles
have metabolisms
based on sulfur. Thus
the Sulfulobus
inhabiting the hot sulfur springs of Yellowstone. National Park at 7075 ○C
obtain their energy by oxidizing elemental sulfur to sulfuric acid. The
recently – byjus.com/biology/archaebacteria described Pyrolubos fumarii
holds the
current record for heat stability, with a 106 ○C temperature optimum and
113○C maximum—it is so heat tolerant that it is not killed by a one-hour
treatment in an autoclave (121○C).
Halophiles (“salt lovers”) live in very salty places lie the Great Salt Lake in
Utah, Mono Lake in California, and the Dead Sea in Israel. Whereas the
salinity of seawater is around 3%, these bacteria thrive in, and indeed
require, water with a salinity of 15 to 20%.
pH- tolerant archaebacterial grow in highly acidic (pH= 0.7) and very basic
(pH= 11) environments.
Cryophilic or Cold – loving – those that can live in freezing temperature.
These are common in the North and South poles.
3. Nonextreme archaebacterial
Grow in the same environments eubacteria do.
As the genomes of archaebacteria have
become better known, microbiologist have
been able to identify signature sequences of
DNA present in all archaebacterial and in no
other organisms. When samples from soil or
sea water are tested from genes matching
these signal sequences, many of the bacteria
living there prove to be archaebacteria.
Clearly,

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 byjus.com/biology/archaebacteria archaebacterial are not restricted to extreme
habitats, as microbiologist used to think.
Reproduction
Archeabacteria reproduces by a process called binary fission. This process is similar to
mitosis in that one cell becomes two cells. This process does not happen in seconds it actually
takes about 20 minutes for a bacteria cell to divide. This is much quicker than a human cell that
can take up to or more than 24 hours to divide. Archeabacteria are also reproduces through
budding and fragmentation.

Kingdom Protista
Protists are eukaryotes with nuclei and other membrane – bound organelles. Most protists are
unicellular but some are multicellular. Instead of organs, they have functionally equivalent
subcellular structures called organelles. In recognition of the complexity of Protozoa, which
often far exceeds that of other individual cells, many biologists prefer to call them acellular
organisms, i.e. organisms whose bodies do not exhibit the usual construction of cells. They are
divided into two: plant – like protists called algae, and animal – like protists called protozoans.
Protozoans
Protozoans are protists with animal – like characteristics. There are similarities between
protozoans and animals. Both are heterotrophs and can move around. An important difference
between them is that protozoans are unicellular while animals are multicellular. On the basis of
their way of movement, protozoans are classified as Sarcodinians, Zooflagellates, and
Ciliophorans.

Sarcodinians
The amoeboid Protozoa, Sarcodina (also called
Rhizipoda), are thought to be more closely related to the
flagellates than to the other protozoan groups, some
flagellates undergo amoeboid phases, and conversely, some
Sarcodina have flagellated stages.
The most familiar sarcodines are the freshwater species of
the genera Amoeba which have pseudopods. The
pseudopods, which are large and have rounded or blunt
ends, function in both movement and in feeding by phagocytosis. thoughtco.com/protista

23 | P a g e
 Included in the Sarcodina are several groups of protozoans that secrete hard shells around
themselves. These shells, often quite elaborate and complex, can be used in species
identification. The pseudopods of shelled Sarcodina are usually thin and pointed. A sticky
secretion on the outside of the pseudopods traps prey organisms that touch them. Two groups of
shelled sarcodines, the Foraminifera and the Radiolaria, have played major roles in the geologic
history of the earth. Both groups are extremely abundant in the oceans, and when the individuals
die, their shells become important components of the bottom mud.
Mainly amoebas become hard cysts to survive in unfavorable conditions. The cyst can
withstand drought, heat, or being eaten by other organisms. The amoeba Entameba histolytica,
which causes one kind of human dysentery, can spread by its cysts in water, food, or on dishes.
Some sarcodinians, the foraminiferrans and radiolarians, have hard shells of
calcium carbonate and silica. Most of them live in the ocean and are important source of
food for many marine animals. Some hard – shelled sarcodinians are involved with
geological formations. When they die, the buildup of shells makes huge deposites of
limestone called chalk.

Zooflagellates – Zooflagellates propel themselves by flagella. They appear to be the most

primitive of all the Protozoa, and it seems likely that some (and possibly all) of the other
protozoan groups arose from them. Many biologists (though certainly not all) believe that the
flagellate protozoans were also the ancestors of the multicellular plants and animals. There is
good reason to think that flagellated unicells played a key role in the evolution of life on earth.
They are free – living freshwater or marine organisms. Many flagellates are also found
inside other organisms in symbiotic relationships or as parasites. The Trychonympha in the gut
of termites digest the cellulose of the wood that termites eat. In tum, the zooflagellate release
nutrients from the wood that the termites can absorb.
Parasitic zooflagellates include Trypanosoma which causes the
African sleeping sickness in humans. It produces toxins that destroy
red blood cells, causing the host to become weak and anemic. If
untreated, it attacks the host central nervous system causing death.
The trypanosome is spread by the bite of the tsetse fly.

(thoughtco.com/Protista)

Trypanosoma

Ciliophorans – The ciliophorans, or the ciliates, are the largest protozoan and also the most
homogeneous that mostly live in freshwater habitats. Ciliates possess numerous cilia for
movement. They have the most elaborate organelles of any Protozoa,
and it is to them that the term ‘’acellular’’ applies best. The most
common ciliate that is studied is the paramecium. It is slipper –

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shaped, without shell, and is covered with a tough, flexible pellicle. Inside the pellicle are
trichocysts, tiny toxic darts that are used to capture prey, or for anchorage to the surface. The
cilia are also used to gather food which consists of microscopic algae and bacteria. The
paramecium exhibits asexual reproduction through binary fission. During stressful conditions,
such as dehydration or starvation, they can share genetic information by sexual process called
conjugation.

Sporozoans – Sprozoans are spore – forming parasitic

protozoans that have no structures for movement. The life
cycle for movement. The life cycle of sporozoans include an
alternation of sexual and asexual phases, and may involve
one or more hosts. Immature sporozoans, called sporozoites,
can be transmitted through fluids from one host to another.
The sporozoan Plasmodium, is carried by certain species of
mosquitoes, causes malaria.
(thoughtco.com/Protista) plasmodium

Importance of Protozoans
Protozoans are the third most numerous kind of living organisms in the oceans. They are
important food source for many small animals, where they form part of the plankton.
The main food of many protozoans is bacteria. In aquatic environments, protozoans help keep
the numbers of bacteria in balance with other organisms. Some protozoans act as scavengers,
feeding on dead organisms and other organic matter. Scavengers help break down dead plants
and
animals and recycle nutrients back into the environment. Parasitic protozoans that cause diseases
greatly affect human lives.
Algae
Algae are plantlike protists that are mostly unicellular and live where there is sufficient
water. Some are plantlike because they contain the green pigment chlorophyll which makes them
photosynthetic. Algae provide food, directly or indirectly, for other organisms. They are divided
into two groups: unicellular algae and multicellular algae.
1. Unicellular Algae
The unicellular or single – celled algae differ from each other in their outer covering
and
means of movement. They include the dinoflagellates, diatoms and euglenoid.

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Dinoflagellates – These are covered with cellulose plates and each has
two flagella that spin the cells through the water. Most grow in saltwater
habitats and are free – living, but some have symbiotic relationships with
jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals.

Diatoms – Diatoms are covered with glass shells and lack structures
for movement. They are among the most abundant organisms in the
oceans. They float in the water probably because they contain oil.
Shells of dead diatoms form geological accumulations which may
grow upward with the land. Diatomaceous earth is a soil deposit
containing diatoms and are used for insulate on, detergents
and cleaners, abrasives, and polishing agents in toothpaste.
thoughtco.com/prosista

Euglenoids – The euglenoids are the unicellular organisms that show a combination of plant-like
and animal-like characteristics.
They are plant-like in that many species have chlorophyll and are photosynthetic; they are
animal-like in lacking a cell wall and being highly motile, and the
species lack that chlorophyll are heterotrophic, like animals.Like
many protozoans, euglenoids use flagellafor movement. They have
no rigid cell wall but have a flexible protein covering called a
pellicle. Many species of euglena have chloroplasts and perform
photosysnthesis which made biologists in the past think that they
were algae.
thoughtco.com/prosista

2. Multicellular Algae
The body of multicellular algae is called a thallus (plural, thalli), which have many
specialized structures including stringlike filaments, leaflike sheets, or rootlike holdfasts. Those
with leaflike thalli are called seaweeds. They have chloroplasts and perform photosynthesis.
Multicellular algae are divided into three phyla: Chlorophyta or green algae, Rhodophyta or red
algae, and Phaeophyta or brown algae.
Green Algae – the green algae, generally regarded as the group from which the land plants
arose, are probably the only algal division that has not been a phylogenetic dead end. Like land
plants, the green algae possess chlorophylls a and b and carotenoids; unlike many other algae,
they have no usual chlorophylls.

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Many divergent evolutionary tendencies, all probably beginning with walled and flagellated
unicellular organisms, can be traced in the Chlorophyta: (1) the evolution of motile colonies; (2)
a change to non-motile unicells and colonies; (3) the evolution of extensive tubelike bodies with
numerous nuclei but without cellular partitions; (4) the evolution of multicellular filaments and
even three-dimensional leaf-like thalluses. Chlamydomonas is a genus of unicellular green algae
that probably resemble the ancestral organisms from which the rest of the plant kingdom arose.
Its many species are common in ditches, pools, and other bodies of freshwater and in soils. The
individual organism is an oval haploid cell with two anterior flagella and a single large cup-
shaped chloroplast. A conspicuous pyrenoid in the posterior portion of the chloroplast functions
as the site of starch synthesis. A stigma, or eyespot, also located inside the large chloroplast,
helps mediate the organism’s positive response to light. Instead of the large central vacuole seen
in mature cells of higher plants, the cell has two small contractile vacuoles. Asexual reproduction
is common in Chlamydomonas; mitosis and cytokinesis take place, and the two daughter cells
that are thus formed remain within the wall of the original cell. In some species the daughter
cells undergo further division, producing a total of 4, 8, 16, or more cells develop walls and
flagella and are released from the parent cell as free zoospores.
Under certain conditions Chlamydomonas may reproduce sexually. A mature haploid cell
divides mitotically to produce several gamete cells, which develop walls and flagella and are
released from the parent cell. Gametes are attracted to each other and form large clusters.
Eventually the clustered cells move apart in pairs. The cells then shed their walls, and their
cytoplasm and nuclei fuse, producing a single diploid cell, the zygote. The zygote sheds its
flagella, sinks to the bottom, and develops a thick protective wall. It can withstand unfavourable
environmental conditions, such as drying up of the pond or the cold of winter. When the
conditions are again favourable, it germinates, dividing by meiosis to produce four ( or eight)
new flagellated haploid cells, which are release into the surrounding water. The new cells
quickly mature, thus completing the sexual reproductive cycle. Because reproduction in most
species of Chlamydomonas is at very simple level, it can give as insight into the way sexuality
probably arose.
A volvox is a common colonial green algae. Colony may contain several thousand cells. Most
green algae live in fresh water or in moist soil. Some live on the shallow ocean floor, and a few
live in symbiotic relationships with Paramecium, Hydra and fungi. A symbiotic relationship
between an alga and a fungus is called a lichen.
Red Algae – These algae grow mainly in warm saltwater habitats. Most red algae are red
but some appear green, orange, and others look almost black. Red algae have chlorophyll
and other accessory pigments that trap sunlight. This enables them to use light penetrating
in deep water. Coralline red algae are important component of coral reefs.

Brown Algae – These algae mostly grow in cool saltwater habitats. They include the giant
which them to rocks. They also have specialized air

27 | P a g e
bladders that act like balloons or life jackets and cause the are the largest organisms in the
kingdom Protista. Their bodies have
specialized parts kelps called holdfasts that anchor leaflike portion of the thallus
to float near the surface. Here they can absorb the sunlight needed for photosynthesis. The
life cycle of the brown algae exhibits an alternation of generation between spore- producing
and gamete producing phases.

G r e e n A l g a e

R e d A l g a e

Brown Algae

thoughtco.com/prosista

Importance of Algae
Algae are important components of plankton. Photosynthetic plankton called
phytoplankton, is an important food source for many heterotrophic marine organism including
fish, shrimp, and whales. They are also an important source of oxygen in the atmosphere. Some
algae provide surfaces for unicellular and small multicellular algae to grow on, some build coral
reefs, and the brown algae provide habitats for many marine animals.
Funguslike Protists
Funguslike protists are small organisms that live in damp or watery places. They help
break
down dead organic matter, and a few are important parasites or plants or animals. They are
divided
into three groups: Plasmodial slime molds, cellular slime molds, and water molds.
Plasmodial slime molds – slime molds have shiny, wet appearance, or texture like gelatin.
A plasmodium is the feeding stage in the life cycle of a plasmodial slime mold.
Plasmodiums are formless masses that can weigh up to 50 g with a size like the palm of a
human hand and functions as single cells with multiple nuclei. Plasmodium slime molds
eat bacteria and other small organisms. When food is lacking, it forms a fruiting body that
produces spores which can be spread and can remain dominant for many years. When
conditions are favorable for feeding and growth, haploid cells are released from the spores
and fuse to form an ameboid zygote. Cell division of the zygote regenerates the
plasmodium and starts the life cycle again.
Cellular slime molds – these slime molds also have an alternating ameboid form and a
defined spore – producing fruiting body like the plasmodial slime molds. Most cellulose

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slime molds live in fresh water, damp soil, or on decomposing plant matter. Ameboid cells
engulf and ingest nutrients like the protozoan amoeba. A chemical attractant is secreted by
the ameboid cells to stimulate the nearby cells to move and clump together forming a
pseudoplasmodium (false plasmodium). The pseudoplasmodium produces fruiting bodies
which in turn produce spores.
Water molds – These include the white rusts and downy mildews. Their cell walls are
mostly cellulose, unlike the cell walls of the true fungi which contain chitin. Asexual
reproduction produces spores with flagella. Water molds are either decomposers or
parasites growing a freshwater on decaying plants which cause a lot of trouble. One
example is Phytophthora infestans, which cause late blight of potatoes.

KingdomFungi
There are more than 10, 000 species of fungi which are important to man in many
respects. They contribute to food people eat, to medicine, and to the recycling process that
releases nutrients from dead organisms back into the environment. Fungi also cause many
diseases, but most are vital to the well – being of organisms.
Mushrooms are fungi that resemble plants. They grow, do not move, and are edible and
delicious like plants. They differ from plants in their lack of chlorophyll and they never
reproduce by seeds. Fungi have cell walls made up of chitin, not cellulose.

Nutrition of Fungi

All fungi are heterotrophs, obtaining their nutrition from other organisms. They are mostly
saprophytes, obtaining their nutrients by digesting and absorbing nutrients from dead
organisms. Some are parasites and a few are predators. Fungi digest their food outside of their
bodies by secreting enzymes that break down organic material and then absorbed through their
cell walls. Some natural compounds, such as lignin of wood, can be broken down only by
fungi.
Structure of Fungi
Some fungi, such as yeast, are unicellular. The cells have walls containing chitin, a cell
membrane, a nucleus, a large vacuole, and membrane – bound organelles. They undergo cell
division like other eukaryotes.

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Most fungi are multicellular, with unusual cells in their bodies. The fungal body consists
of tiny filaments, called hyphae, which are tiny tubes filled with cytoplasm and nuclei. The
mass of tangled, interwoven hyphae is called a mycelium. The stalk of a mushroom is a
mycelium made of tightly packed hyphae. The hyphae of most filamentous fungi are divided by
partitions or cross walls (septa), forming compartments or ‘’cells.’’ Sometimes, however, the
partitions are absent or incomplete, so the cytoplasm is continuous. The individual ‘’cells’’ of
fungi, unlike of those plants and animals, often have more than one nucleus. In most fungi the
basic component of the cell wall is not cellulose but chitin, a complex polysaccharide containing
nitrogen.
Growth and Reproduction of Fungi
The structure of the mycelium allows the fungi to grow rapidly. The hyphae in a
mycelium
share the same cytoplasm which allow quick movement of materials through the mycelium.
Materials needed for growth can move easily to the growing regions of the hyphae. The fungus
grows because its hyphae grow longer, which collectively, may be as much as 1 km per day.
Fungi can reproduce both asexually and sexually. When nutrients and water are abundant,
asexual reproduction is most common. This produces offspring that are genetically identical to
the parent. When nutrients or water become scarce, sexual reproduction occurs.
Fungi are dispersed by means of spores. The reproductive structures of fungi that produce
spores are fruiting bodies. A fruiting body consists of a stalk and a sac in which spores are
produced. Fungi produce a great amount of spores. A typical mushroom for example, makes
about 16 billion spores.
Spores are small and light and are easily dispersed by wind, animals, insects or water.
Thus,
they are found in any place on earth, even in closets and in shoes.
Sexual reproduction varies in different groups of fungi. On this basis fungi are classified
into four divisions: common molds, club fungi, sac fungi, and imperfect fungi. There are no
male or female fungi. Instead, two mating types, called plus (+) mating type and minus (-)

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mating type, fuse to form a diploid zygote. The diploid nuclei undergo meiosis to reproduce
haploid nuclei.

Common Molds
The common molds belong to the division Zygomycota. Black bread mold, Rhizopus
stolonifera, is a familiar mold which grow not only on bread but whenever there are water and
nutrients. The Zygomycota are so named because they form a special type of sexual resting
spore, known as the zygospore, during sexual reproduction.
The hyphae of common molds are long, no septa and contain many haploid nuclei. Some
hyphae penetrate the bread or other nutrient source through their rhizoids. Rhizoids anchor the
mold and absorb nutrients just like the roots of plants. Other hyphae arch over the surface of the
food source and connect one group of rhizoids to another through their stolons. Stolons transport
the nutrients absorbed by rhizoids throughout the mycelium.
The common molds Rhizopus reproduce asexually and sexually. The union of the nuclei of
a (+) and a (-) stolon produces a zygospore which can survive hostile environmental conditions.
When conditions improve, the zygospore cracks open and forms a fruiting body called
sporangium. After meiosis of the nuclei, thousands of haploid spores are released and each spore
can form a new mycelium.

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Club Fungi
Club fungi belong to the division Basidiomycota. They include mushrooms, bracket fungi,
shelf fungi, puffballs, and stinkhorns. Some moldlike fungi called rusts, and smuts, that damage
grains, food crops, and other plants, are also club fungi.

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 The most common type of reproduction in club fungi is sexual reproduction. Spores are
formed in a structure called a basidium, the structure from which the name of the division is
derived. The cells of the hyphae that produce basidia contain one haploid male nucleus and one
haploid female nucleus (usually designated as minus and plus). Certain terminal cells of these
hyphae, located in rows, or ‘’gill,’’ on the undersurface of the cap of the so-called gill fungi,
become zygotes when their two nuclei fuse in fertilization. The zygote then become a basidium.
Its diploid nucleus divides by meiosis, producing four new haploid nuclei. Four small
protuberances then develop on the end of the basidium, and the haploid nuclei migrate into these.
The tip of each protuberance then becomes walled off as a spore, which is usually ejected from
the basidium. Each spore may give rise to a new mycelium. Mushrooms are the most common
club fungi. They produce large numbers of spores. A single mushrooms 7.5 cm wide can release
40 million spores per hour.

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 britannica.com/science/fungi
Sac Fungi
Sac fungi belong to the division Ascomycota. They include yeasts, cup fungi, truffles, and
morels. Reproduction of sac fungi are both asexual and sexual. Sexual reproduction involves an
ascus in which spores are formed by the fusion of nuclei and meiosis. Asexual reproduction
involves cell division and budding.
Members of this large division are very diverse. It form a cup-shaped structure composed of
many hyphae tightly packed together. The vegetative hyphae of Ascomycota, unlike those of
Zygomycota, possess cross walls, which are usually incomplete, having large holes in their
centers. The cytoplasm of adjacent cells is thus continuous.

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Imperfect Fungi.
.
Imperfect fungi are not really a
phylogenetic grouping but rather a
taxonomic ‘’wastebasket’’ into which
are thrown those species for which

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sexual stages are absent. They reproduce asexually by means of conidia. Because these fungi
lack a perfect (sexual) phase, they are called ‘’imperfect fungi.’’
They belong to the division aoxoumyota.They include the penicillin – producing mold,
Penicillium. Imperfect fungi also include those that cause athlete’s foot, ringworm, and
fingernail infections in humans. One unusual member of imperfect fungi, Arthrobotrys, is a
fungal predator that can trap and kill small nematode worms.

Importance of Fungi
Fungi are important to the environment and to humans. They have a role in
recycling
nutrients that are essential for ecosystems. Most fungi are either saprophytes or decomposers that
break down and feed on decaying organic materials or dead organisms. Without decomposers
such
as fungi, ecosystems would collapse, because many organisms would not be obtaining enough
nutrients to stay alive.
Yeasts cause bread to rise and are also used to make fermented beverages such as
beer and wine. Yeasts are also essential tools in genetic engineering and research. Aspergillus, an
imperfect fungus, is used in making citric acid and in fermenting soy sauce. Penicillium mold
provides the turquoise streaks in Roquefort and blue cheese. Other molds are used to create the
distinct flavors, aromas, and tastes of many cheese varieties. The common button mushroom,
Agaricus campestris, is a popular ingredient in salads and sauces. Other fungi are used to
produce
antibiotics, while some are important gourmet delicacies.
Fungi are vital for the growth of many plants. Mycorrhizae are mutualistic associations
between a fungus and the roots of a plant. The hyphae of the fungus act as root extensions of the
plant thereby increasing the ability of the roots to absorb water from the soil. The digestive
enzymes secreted by the fungus help break down organic matter in the soil, which the plant can
then absorb as nutrients and minerals. Both plants and fungi benefit each other to survive harsh
conditions. Many fungi can cause disease. Plant diseases caused by fungi can destroy a great
amount of harvested crops each year. Some fungi also damage property, such as those that rot
wood. Some fungi can infect humans. Athlete’s foot, ringworm, and yeast infections in moist
body areas are common in humans.

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Kingdom Plantae
There are about 500,000 known species of plants on earth. All plants are photosynthetic,
multicellular, sexually reproducing, eukaryotic organisms. Based on the evidence of fossils and
on the similar characteristics of plants and green alga, it is believed that the ancestor of all plants
is a multicellular green alga that lived more than 430 million years ago. Some of the common
characteristics of plants and green algae include the photosynthetic pigments in chloroplasts, cell
walls that contain cellulose, development of cell plate during cell division and food stored as
starch.
There are major differences between plants and green algae. Plants have leaves, stems
and roots which algae lack. Most plants do not require water for fertilization while algae do
require water. Plants are generally terrestrial while green algae are primarily aquatic. The
multicellularity in plants arose first in the gametophytes, and that many green algae have no
sporophyte stage.
There are two broad categories of modern plants, nonvascular and vascular. Vascular
tissue, present only in vascular plants, is tissue specialized for the transport of water and solutes
through a plant.
Nonvascular plants (Bryophyta)
These include the mosses, liverworts, and other related plants. They are more dependent on
ample water than do vascular plants. They lack true roots, leaves or stems, but they have
structures that perform similar functions. They have rhizoids instead of roots, flat broad tissues
that contain chloroplasts like leaves.
The bryophytes are relatively small plants that grow in moist places on land—on damp rocks and
logs, on the forest floor, in swamps or marshes, or beside streams and pools. Some species can
survive periods of drought, but only by becoming dormant and ceasing to grow. In shorts, the
bryophytes live on land, but they have never become fully emancipated from their ancestral
aquatic environment, and they have therefore never become a dominant group of plants. Their
great dependence on a moist environment is linked to two characteristics: they retain flagellated
sperm cells, which must swim to the egg cells in the archegonia; and most lack vascular tissues
—and therefore lack efficient long- distance internal transport of fluids. The absence of true
xylem cells with thickened walls, which function as major supportive elements in vascular
plants, has probably also limited the size the bryophytes can attain.
The Bryophytes are thought by some botanists to have arisen from filamentous green algae.
Indeed, a very small moss plant, called a protonema, often closely resembles a green algal
filaments. As the plant grows, it forms some branches (rhizoids) that enter the ground and
function like roots, anchoring the plant and absorbing water and nutrients; different branches
from upright shoots with stem-like and leaf-like parts.
We noted earlier among the larger and more complex algae, most of which exhibit
alternation of generations, an apparent evolutionary tendency, in many instances, toward
reduction of the gametophyte (multicellular haploid) stage and increasing emphasis of the
sporophyte (multicellular diploid) stage.

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Vascular plants (Tracheophyta)
More than 90 percent of all modern plants are vascular plants. They have
roots for water absorption and for support. The leaves contain chlorophyll for photosynthesis.
Most vascular plants have leaves that are covered by cuticle and are also provided with pores for
gaseous exchange. The size of the leaf pores is controlled by special cells called guard cells.
Though most bryophytes live on land, in a sense they are not fully terrestrial. The
tracheophytes, by contrast, have evolved a host of adaptations to the terrestrial environment that
have enabled them to invade all but the most inhospitable land habitats. In the process, they have
diverged sufficiency fro one another for botanists to classify them in five subdivisions.
All members of this division (with a few minor exceptions) possess four important attributes
lacking in even the most advanced and complex algae: (1) a protective layer of sterile jacket cells
around the reproductive organs; (2) multicellular embryos retained within the archegonia; (3)
cuticles on the aerial parts; (4) xylem. All four are obviously fundamental adaptations for a
terrestrial existence. Many other such adaptations, absent in the earliest tracheophytes, appear in
more advanced members of the division; a history of the evolution of these adaptations is a
history of the increasingly extensive exploitation of the terrestrial environment by vascular
plants.

Plants Diversification
Land plants have evolved adaptations in order to survive different conditions on land. The
cell walls of new plants are harder because of the compound lignin. This adaptation caused
woody plants to grow much taller than the other plants and to spread their leaves on strong
branches and stems to catch sunlight. Some plants have bud scales that protect them from
winter’s cold; others produce antifreeze compounds and some lose their leaves and become
dormant to cope with drought.
Vascular plants produce either spores or seeds to reproduce. A seed is a protective structure
that contains a plant embryo and stored food. Seeds and spores can survive long periods of cold,
heat, and dryness. New areas can be colonized by plants through seed and spore dispersal. Other
plants have seeds enclosed in fleshy fruit which allow seeds to pass unharmed through an
animal’s digestive system.
Plant Classification
In the past, classification systems were based on the uses of plants, on plant shape, and on
structures that can be seen with the unaided eye. The more recent classification is based on the
use of biochemistry and molecular biology to determine evolutionary relationships in plants.
Plants are divided into ten divisions. One division, Division Bryophyta, include all the
nonvascular plants; the other nine divisions include the vascular plants. The bryophytes include
three classes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. The vascular plants (Division Tracheophyta)
are classified into seedless plants(ferns) and seed plants. Seed plants are divided into

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gymnosperms producing seeds that lack a protective fruit, and angiosperms, producing seeds
enclosed and protected by a fruit. Angiosperms are flowering plants which includes the majority
of the trees, bushes and houseplants. They are distinguished by the number of seed leaves or
cotyledons in the plant embryo. Monocot are angiosperms with only one cotyledon while dicots
have two cotyledons. Monocots include lilies, orchids, corn, and other grasses while dicot
include roses, beans, clovers, and most trees.
Seedless Plants
The seedless plants include mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and ferns. They reproduce by
spores, not by seeds.
Seedless Nonvascular Plants
Mosses
Mosses grow anywhere, on brick walls, in cracks in sidewalks, as thick mats on forest
floors, and on the shaded sides of trees. Some are adapted in deserts or survive periodic dry
spells, but revive when water becomes available again. They need water to complete their life
cycle.
Mosses do not have a complicated vascular system to carry water from the soil to the top of the
plant. Since their bodies are only a few cells thick, water passes from cell to cell by osmosis.
Life Cycle.
A typical moss exhibits an alternation of haploid gametophyte and diploid sporophyte
phases. Gametophytes have rhizoids which anchor the moss in place. The smaller sporophyte is
attached to the gametophyte by a foot. A long, slender stalk grows up from the foot, and a
capsule at the top of the stalk forms the haploid spores.
Sexual Reproduction
Two kinds of gametes: egg and sperm, are produced by mosses. The gametes are
surrounded by a jacket of sterile cells as protection from drying out and drying. Eggs are
large with much cytoplasm; sperms are smaller and have flagella, for swimming through
water to reach the eggs. The egg- producing organ of a moss is called an archegonium,
while the sperm – producing organ is called antheridium. For most mosses, fertilization
can occur only during or soon after rain or after seasonal flooding, when gametophyte is
covered by water. The sperm follows a trail of chemicals released by the egg into the water.
Fertilization produces zygote that undergoes mitosis and becomes a sporophyte. Mature
cells in the sporophyte undergo meiosis and form haploid spores which are later carried by
the wind to land in a moist place, where it sprouts and forms a new gametophyte.

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 Asexual Reproduction
There are two ways by which mosses reproduce asexually: fragmentation and gemmae
reproduction.
Fragmentation occurs when small pieces break from a gametophyte and grow into a new
plant. Gemmae are tiny pieces of tissue that can form new gametophytes. Rain may carry
gemmae to a new area to form new gametophytes.

Liverworts (Hepaticophyta)

The name liverwort was given because of the belief

of people in medieval times that the plant could cure
liver diseases. The antheridia and archegonia of
liverworts are like tiny umbrellas that are attached to
the leafy gametophyte. Cuplike structures gemmae
cups, on the upper surface of the gametophyte hold
the gemmae for sexual reproduction.

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Hornworts (Anthocophyta)
The gametophytes of hornworts are like some of
those of liverworts. However, the archegonia and

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 antheridia of hornworts form inside of the plant. The sporophyte of hornworts can
perform photosynthesis unlike those of mosses and liverworts. Spores are spread by the
drying and splitting of the long thin sporangia.

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Seedless Vascular Plants

Many vascular plants reproduce sexually by seeds, not by spores. Vascular plants that
reproduce by spores are called seedless vascular plants. They include whisk ferns, club
mosses, horsetails, and true ferns. There are only about 30 species of whisk ferns and
horsetail, about 1000 species of club mosses, and 12,000 species of true ferns.

Whisk Ferns (Psilophyta)

A whisk fern is a plant who’s highly branched stems

resemble the straws in a whisk broom. There are two living
genera of whisk ferns which grow mostly in the United
States. The sporophyte generation is the most prominent
phase in the life cycle. Whisk ferns lack true leaves and
roots. They have rhizoids attached to underground stems.
Underground stems that
function as roots are called rhizomes. Photosynthesis
occurs on the green stems. Whisk ferns live symbiotically
with a fungus.
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Psilophyta are the oldest known vascular plants; fossil
representatives of this group appeared about 416 million years ago. Nothing the
resemblance between the Philophyta and certain branching filamentous algae, botanists
have assumed that these primitive tracheophytes evolved directly from the filamentous
green algae. They are regarded as a transitional group, linking the green algae with the
higher vascular plants.

Club Mosses (Tycophyta)

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 A club moss is not a true moss. It is a low – growing
vascular plants that looks like a small pine tree, from
which their common name, ground pine, is derived. Club
mosses are club shaped, spore – producing structures that
grow from the sporophytes. Spores of many club mosses
contain chemicals that make them burn quickly and
brightly. They were once used by photographers for flash
powder.
The first representatives of the Tycophyta appeared about 380 million years ago. Some
of the later Tycophytes were very large trees that formed the earth’s first forests. The
group was eventually displaced by more advanced types of vascular plants, and only
five genera are alive today.

Horsetails (Arthrophyta/ Spherophyta)

Horsetails have photosynthetic stems and underground

rhizomes like the whisk ferns. The stems are tough and
scratchy because of the component silica, the same
materials from which glass is made. Horsetails were used
once to scour, or scrub pots and pans. brainyias.com/plantae-kingdom
The Spherophytes first appear in the fossil record about 360 million years ago.
Members of the one living genus of Spherophytes, Equisetum, are commonly called
horsetails or scouring rushes. They are generally found in wet places, but may also
grow in dry gravel along roadsides or railway tracks. Though most of these are small,
some of the ancient spherophytes were large trees.

Ferns (Pterophyta)

The largest group of living seedless vascular plants

are the ferns. They were most abundant in the late
carboniferous period, about 300 million years ago.
Ferns grow in different places but usually in moist
habitats because they need water for fertilization.
They vary in size and shape.
Ferns exhibit an alternation of haploid gametophyte
and diploid sporophyte phases. The fern gametophyte
is heart – shaped and tiny. In its most prominent brainyias.com/plantae-kingdom
generation, the sporophyte phase, the fern has a stem with true roots and true leaves
because they have special water – carrying tissues. Some ferns form spores on

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 specialized stalklike leaves. Other ferns form spores in special structures, sori (sing.
Sorus), on the underside of the leaves. The leaf of a typical fern, called a frond, is
compound and is divided into smaller leaflets. Each frond is made up of the blade and
petiole. The blade is the photosynthetic surface of the frond while the petiole is the
stalk that attaches the frond’s blade to the stem.
Ferns are believed to have evolved from the Psilophyta, appearing in the fossil record
somewhat later than the Tycophyta and spherophyta. They are fairly advanced plants
with a very well-developed vascular system and with true roots, stems, and leaves.

Gymnosperms
The name gymnosperm combines the Greek root gymnos, or “naked,” with sperma, or
“seed.” In other words, gymnosperms are naked – seeded plants. However, although the
ovules are naked at the time of pollination, the seeds of gymnosperms are sometimes
enclosed by other sporophyte tissues by the time they are mature. There are several
groups of living gymnosperms, none of which are directly related to one another, but all
of which lack the special characteristics of angiosperms. Gymnosperm stems may be
green and pencil – thin, vine – like, bowl – shaped, or trunks that range from slender
shoots to huge specimens up to 7 meters in diameter. Gymnosperm leaves may be
needle – like, fan – shaped, scale – like, strap – like, or in the form of a large frond.
Details of reproduction vary somewhat in gymnosperms, and their forms vary greatly.
There are about 700 species of gymnosperms, which include the pine, fir, and other
spruce. Gymnosperms include one of the largest and some of the oldest organisms on
earth. The giant redwood tree can be as tall as a 30 – storey building. Some bristlecone
pines are more than 5000 years old. Gymnosperms, such as the pine, have male and
female cones on the same tree that produce male and female gametes. The life cycle of
a pine takes two or three years from time the cones form until seeds are released. The
female cones consist of spirally arranged scales and secrete a sticky resin. At the base
of each scale are two egg – containing ovules. An ovule is a structure, consisting of an
egg inside protective cells, that develops into a seed. Smaller than the female cone is
the male cone that produces large amounts of pollen. The pollen, with their winglike
structures, are released and are carried by the wind to reach female cones. Pollination
is the transfer of pollen from the male to the female part of a plant.
The seed plants have been by far the most successful in fully exploiting the terrestrial
environment. They first appeared in late Devonian, some 350 million years ago, and in
the following period, they soon replaced the club mosses and horsetails as the dominant
land plants, a position they still hold today. These plants shoe several evolutionary
advances over the more primitive tracheophytes: their gametophytes are smaller and
dependent on the sporophyte; water is not necessary for the transport of stem; and the
young embryo, together with a rich supply of nutrients, is protected within a seed coat
and can remain dormant for extended periods if environmental conditions are

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 unfavourable. In short, the aspects of the reproductive process that are most vulnerable
in more primitive vascular plants have been eliminated in the seed plants.

Coniferophyta: The Conifers

The most familiar gymnosperms are conifers, which include pines, a spruces, firs,
cedars,
hemlocks, yews, larches, cypresses, and others. The Coastal Redwood (Sequoia
sempervirens), a conifer native to northwestern California and southwestern Oregon, is
the tallest living vascular plant; it may attain nearly 100 meters (300 feet) in height.
Another conifer, the bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) of the White Mountains of
California is the oldest living tree; one is 4900 years of age. Conifers are found in the
colder temperate and sometimes drier regions of the world, especially in the northern
hemisphere. They are sources of timber, paper, resin, turpentine, and other
economically
Important products.
According to fossil evidence, the gymnosperms did not evolve from the ferns; the two
groups appear to have arisen independently from an ancestral group, probably the long-
extinct progymnosperms.

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cycadophyta:
Cycads
Cycads are slow – growing gymnosperms of
tropical and subtropical regions. The sporophyte

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 of most of the 100 known species resemble palm trees with trunk that can attain height
of 15 meters or more.
Unlike palm trees – which are flowering plants – cycads produce cones and have a life
cycle similar to that of pines.

Gnetophyta: gnetophytes
There are three genera and about 70 living
species of Gnetophyta. Gnetophytes are the
closes living relatives of angiosperms and
probably share common ancestor which that
group.

Ginkgophyta: Ginkgo
The fossil record indicates that members of the
Ginkgo family were once widely distributed,
particularly in the Northern Hemisphere; today
only one living species, the mainderhair tree
(Ginkgo biloba), remains. The tree, which sheds
its leaves in the fall, was first encountered by
Europeans in cultivation in Japan and China.

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Angiosperms
Angiosperms are flowering plants.
Are the most abundant of plants
and therefore the dominant group
in the plant kingdom. There are
about 250, 000 named species of
angiosperms. There are two types
of angiosperms: monocot, whose
seeds consist of only one
cotyledon, and dicots, whose
seeds have two cotyledons. In
monocots a special food storing

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 tissue, the
endosperm, takes up most of the space. In dicots, the endosperm is
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in the two cotyledons. The part of the embryo in angiosperm seeds are named
according to their relationship with the cotyledons. The part of the plant embryo above
the cotyledon is called epicotyl, which will become the stems and leaves of the plant.
The area of the plant embryo below the cotyledon is called the hypocotyl which will
become the roots of the plant. Surrounding the seed is a seed coat that protects the
embryo and its food supply. The sheath that protects a young monocot plant as it grows
out of the soil is the coleoptile.

Reproduction in Angiosperms
The reproductive structure of an angiosperm is the flower. Flowers are modified stems
with specialized leaves and other structures for reproduction. There are three basic components
of flower:
male, female, and sterile parts. Sterile parts attract
pollinators and protect the developing flowers. Flowers
are either perfect, if it produces male and female
gametes in the same flower, or imperfect, if it lacks the
male or female part. Some angiosperms have separate
male and female flowers on the same plant while in
others, the entire plant is either male or female. Most
flowers have the same basic structures. The female, or
egg-producing part of a flower is called the pistil which
usually forms at the center of the flower. The pistil
consists of three parts:
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stigma, style, and ovary. The stigma is the structure on which pollen lands and germinates. The
style connect the stigma to the ovary. The ovary contains ovules and develops into a fruit. Ovules
form in the ovary, and each ovule contains an egg. The male, or pollen – producing part of a
flower, called the stamen, has two parts: anther and filament. The anther produces the pollen,
which contain sperm cells. The filament holds up the anther. The sterile parts of a flower are the
petals and sepals. Petals are the leaflike appendages on a flower and are usually colorful. All the
petals are collectively called corolla.

KINGDOM ANIMALIA
The kingdom Animalia is a large group that consists of eukaryotic, multicellular
organisms that are heterotrophic in nature. As such, they obtain their nutrition from external

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sources. Although they are unable to produce their own food, which is one of the main
defining characteristics of plants, animal cells lack a cell wall that is present in plant cell. With
the exception of a few animals, the majority of animals are motile which allows them to
effectively respond to stimuli and find food, etc. in general, animals divided into two groups
namely, vertebrates (animals with a backbone) and invertebrates (animals that lack a
backbone). However, they are also divided into several phyla that will be discussed below in
detail. As mentioned, all animals are divided into two main categories/groups: vertebrates and
invertebrates.
Vertebrates
Includes all animals classified under the subphylum Vertebrata. They belong to phylum
chordate and possess a backbone/vertebrae (where the spinal cord is located). They are also
characterized by an internal skeletal system on which muscles are attached.
Invertebrates
As the name suggests, invertebrates lack a backbone and internal skeletons. Some of the
species have an external skeleton that provide structural support. Currently, invertebrates are
suggested to make up over 97 percent of all animals in the animal kingdom. Being such a diverse
group, invertebrates are classified based on a number of characteristics including
morphology/structure, symmetry and life cycle, etc.
Whereas some of the organisms have three body layers, others (primitive invertebrates) only
have two body layers.
Basis for Animal Kingdom Classification
Classification of Animal Kingdom is based on various fundamental features like:
Levels of Organization.
Though all members of Animals are multicellular, all of them do not exhibit the same
pattern of organization of cells. For example, in sponges, the cells are arranged as loose cell
aggregates, i.e., they exhibit cellular level of organization. Some division of labour (activities)
occur among the cells. In coelenterates, the arrangement of cells is more complex. Here the cells
performing the same function are arranged into tissues, hence is called tissue level of
organization. A still higher level of organization, i.e., organ level {organ level of
organization} is exhibited by members of Platyhelminthes and other higher phyla where tissues
are grouped together to form organs, each specialised for a particular function. In animals like
Annelids, Arthropods, Molluscs, Echinoderms and Chordates, organs have associated to form
functional systems, each system concerned with a specific physiological function. This pattern is
called organ system level of organization. Organ system in different groups of animals exhibit
various patterns of complexities. For example, the digestive system in Platyhelminthes
(incomplete digestive system) has only a single opening to the outside of the body that serves as
both mouth and anus, and is hence called incomplete. A complete digestive system has two
openings, mouth and anus. Similarly, the circulatory system may be of two types: open type in
which the blood is pumped out of the heart and the cells and tissues are directly bathed in it and

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closed type in which the blood is circulated through a series of vessels of varying diameters
(arteries, veins and capillaries).

Symmetry
Animals can be categorised on the basis of their symmetry. Sponges are mostly
asymmetrical, i.e., any plane that passes through the centre does not divide them into equal
halves. When any plane passing through the central axis of the body divides the organism into
two identical halves, it is called radial symmetry. Coelenterates, Ctenophores and Echinoderms
have this kind of body plan. Animals like Annelids, Arthropods, etc., where the body can be
divided into identical left and right halves in only plane, exhibit bilateral symmetry.
Diploblastic and Triploblastic Organization
Animals in which the cells are arranged in two embryonic layers, an external ectoderm
and an internal endoderm, are called diploblastic animals, e.g., Coelenterates. An
undifferentiated layer, mesoglea, is present in between the ectoderm and the endoderm. Those
animals in which the developing embryo has a third germinal layer, mesoderm, in between the
ectoderm and endoderm, are called triploblastic animals (Platyhelminthes, chordates).
Coelom
Presence or absence of a cavity between the body wall and the gut wall is very important
in classification. The body cavity, which is lined by mesoderm is called coelom. Animals
possessing coelom are called coelomates, e., Annelids, Molluscs, Arthropods, Echinoderms,
Hemichordates and Chordates. In some animals, the body cavity is not lined by mesoderm,
instead, the mesoderm is present as scattered pouches in between the ectoderm and endoderm.
Such a body cavity is called pseudocoelom and the animals possessing them are called
pseudocoelomates, e., Aschelminthes. The animals in which the body cavity is absent are called
acoelomates, e., Platyhelminthes.
Segmentation
In some animals, the body is externally and internally divided into segments with a serial
repetition of at least some organs. For example, in earthworm, the body shows this pattern called
metameric segmentation and the phenomena is known as metamerism.
Notochord
Notochord is mesodermally (the middle layer of cells or tissues of an embryo, or the parts
derived from this (e.g. cartilage, muscles and bone) derived rod-like structure formed on the
dorsal side (posterior) during embryonic development in some animals. Animals with notochord
are called chordates and those animals which do not form this structure are called non-
chordates, e.g. porifera to Echinoderms.

Different Phylum under the Kingdom Animalia

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 In biology, a phylum is a taxonomic category/level that ranks below Kingdom but above the
Class. It’s an important category that groups that groups organisms based on a set of
characteristics that set them apart from other organisms. In the kingdom Animalia, animals are
divided into a total of eleven (11) Phyla that include:

1. Phylum Chordata
The name Chordate comes from the
Greek words “Chorde” meaning cord or
string and “ata” which means bearing.
Therefore, chordates (members of the
Phylum Chordata) are animals that have a
notochord/cord at some point of their
lives.
While the majority of animals in the
Phylum Chordata have a vertebrate (the
majority of higher animals), the group also
consists of protochordates (e.g. Squirts and
ampioxus) which are closely related to
vertebrates. While they lack a backbone
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which is present in all vertebrates, these organisms have a dorsal nerve cord and a notochord
and thus qualify to be classified under the Phylum Chordata.
Currently, there are an estimated 65, 563 chordate species. While there are not many when
compared to some of other groups, they exhibit great diversity and can be found in a variety
of habitats, in aquatic and terrestrial environments, across the world.
Some examples of chordates include: birds, fishes, mammals, and, reptiles
Main Characteristics of Chordates:
1. Majority of these organisms have an anterior end that may consist of a head or
cephalic region and a posterior end that consist of a tail in a majority of animal.
2. Bilateral symmetry
3. Majority of animals are triploblastic and thus have the three germinal layers
(ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm)
4. Have a coelom
5. Characterized by an organ-system level of organization.
Vertebrate represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum chordata. It classified into seven
main classes that include:
a) Mammalia

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 A mammal (warm-blooded) is a vertebrate that has hairs. Female mammals have
mammary glands from which the Class Mammalia got its name. Mammals are covered with
hair and fur. Mammals are classified into monotremes, marsupials, and the placentals.
Most birds and mammals evolved from reptiles that were probably at least partly
homeothermic, and both became highly successful groups of organisms. But the two groups did
not arise from the same ancestral reptilian stock. The line leading to the mammals split off from
the stem reptiles, while that leading to the birds probably diverged from the dinosaurs.
The mammals are believed to have evolved from the therapsid reptiles, some of which
became very mammal-like; they may even have had hair. Precisely at what point therapsids
ceased and mammals began, it is impossible to say: There was no sudden transformation of
reptile into mammal, no dramatic event to mark the appearance of the first member of our class.
Hence no attempt is made in our review below of some of the characters that distinguish modern
mammals from stem reptiles to specify when each of these characters appeared.
Mammals have four-chambered heart and are homeothermic. They have a diaphragm,
which increase breathing efficiency. There is
increase separation (by the palate) of the
respiratory and alimentary passages. The body is
covered with an insulating layer of hair. The limbs
are oriented ventrally and lift the body high off the
ground. The lower jaw is composed of only one
bone (compared with six or more in most reptiles),
and the teeth are complexly differentiated for a
variety of functions. There are three bones in the
middle ear (compared with one in reptiles and
birds). The brain, particularly the neocortex, is
much larger than in reptiles, and behaviour is more easily modifiable
experience. No eggs are laid (except in monotremes); embryonic development occurs in the
uterus of the mother, and the young are born alive. After birth, the young are nourished on milk
secreted by the mammary glands of the mother.
The main stem of mammalian evolution split into two parts very early, one leading to the
marsupials and the other to the placentals. The characteristic difference between them is that
marsupial embryos remain in the uterus for a relatively short time and then complete their
development while attached to a nipple in an abdominal pouch of the mother, whereas placental
embryos complete their development in the uterus.
The oldest fossils identified are placental mammalian ones are from the Jurassic. They
are small, probably secretive creatures that are thought to have feed primarily on insects. Of the
modern order of mammals, Insectivora (moles, shrews) is closest to this angcient group. The
great radiation from the ensectivore ancestors dates from the beginning of the Cenozoic, which
includes the present, is aptly termed the Age of Mammals.

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 b) Aves/Birds
Class Aves come from the Latin word avis, which means bird. Birds are warm-blooded
vertebrates. They are characterized by wings, feathers, and beak. Reproduction involves laying
eggs that vary in size depending on the type of bird. Examples of birds include kiwi, emu,
chicken, and woodpecker among others. Some birds have wings but cannot fly. On the other
hand, some animals like bats have wings but are classified as mammals. Therefore, not all
animals that fly are classified as birds.
At least two of the lineages of reptiles
that descended from the thecodonts
developed the power of flight. One of
these lineages, the pretpsaurs included
animals with wings consisting of a
large membrane of skin stretched
between the body and the enormously
elongated arm and fourth finger; some
species had wing-spreads as great as 8
m. the pterosaurs were common for
time, but eventually
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became extinct. The other lineage developed wings of an entirely different sort, in which
many long feathers, derived from scales, were attached to the modified forelimbs. This line
eventually became sufficiently different from the other reptiles to be designated by many
taxonomists as a separate class—Aves—the birds.
The oldest known fossil bird (Archaeopteryx) still had many reptilian characters, notably
teeth and a long jointed tail. Neither of these traits is present in modern birds, which have a
beak instead of teeth and only a tiny remnant of the ancestral tail bones (the tail of a modern
bird consists only of feathers).
Along with wings, birds evolved a host of other adaptations for their very active way of
life. One of the most important was warm-bloodedness (homeothermy)—the ability to a high and
constant metabolic rate, and hence great activity, despite fluctuations in environmental
temperature. An anatomical feature that helped make possible the metabolic efficiency necessary
for homeothermy was the complete separation of the two ventricles of the heart; birds have
completely four-chambered hearts. The insulation against heat loss provided by the body feathers
plays an important role in temperature regulation; in modern birds all the scales except those of
the feet are modified as feathers. Among other adaptations for flight are light hollow bones and
an extensive system of air sacs attached to the lungs. Birds also have very keen senses of vision,
hearing, and equilibrium.
The newly hatched young birds are usually not yet capable of complete temperature
regulation, and they cannot fly. In many species, in fact, they are featherless, blind, and virtually
helpless. Accordingly, most birds exhibit elaborate nest-building and parental-care behaviour.

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 c) Reptilian
Reptiles (cold-blooded) are four legged animals and are characterized by the presence of
a tail and dermal scales. For the majority of species, eggs are fertilized internally resulting in
direct development of the organism. Reptiles do not return to the water to lay eggs. Their eggs
survive on land because the leathery shells that cover them prevent from drying. Reptile
examples include turtles, snakes, crocodiles, chameleon, gecko (tuko), water monitor
(bayawak), and gila monster.
The first reptiles are evolved from primitive amphibians by the late Carboniferous. The
class expanded during the Permian, replacing its amphibian predecessors, and became a huge
and dominant group during the Mesozoic era, which is often called the Age of Reptiles.
Reptiles, unlike the amphibians, were terrestrial in the fullest sense of word. Reptiles
used internal fertilization, laid amniotic shelled eggs, had no larval stage, and had dry, scaly,
relatively impermeable skin. Evolution of the amniotic egg—often called the ‘’land egg’’—
which provides a fluid-filled chamber in which the embryo may develop even when the egg itself
is in dry place, was an advance as important in the quest of land as the evolution of legs by the
Amphibia.
The reptilian had many other
characteristics that made them better suited for
terrestrial life than the Amphibia. The legs of the
ancient amphibians were small, weak, attached
far up on the sides of the body, and oriented
literally; hence they were unable to support much
weight, and the belly of the animal often dragged
on the ground; walking was doubtless slow, as it
is in salamanders today. The legs of reptiles were
usually larger and stronger and could therefore
support more weight and effect more rapid
locomotion; in many (though not all) species
were also attached lower on the sides and
oriented more vertically, so that the animal’s
body cleared the
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ground. Whereas the lung of amphibians were poorly developed and inefficiently ventilated,
those of reptiles were fairly well develop, and greater rib musculature made their ventilation
more efficient. whereas the amphibian heart was three-chambered (two atria and one ventricle),
that of reptiles was four-chambered (though the partition between the ventricles was seldom
complete); hence there was less chance of mixing oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.
All the living reptiles except the crocodilians are directly descended from an important
group called stem reptiles (cotylosaurs). This group also give rise to several other lineages,
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including two (ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs) that returned to the aquatic environment, one
(therapsids) that ultimately led to the mammals, and one (the codonts) that in its turn gave rise to
crocodiles, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs, the great assemblage of reptiles called dinosaurs,
and the birds. The dinosaurs were extremely abundant and varied during the Jurassic and
Cretaceous periods.

d) Amphibian
Include cold-blooded animals that spend of
their lives in water. While they can absorb oxygen
through their skin in a moist environment, some
species (or some stage of their life) have gills use to
breath in water. They can also breathe using lungs on
land. They lay- jelly- like eggs in moist environments
or in water. Most amphibians start life as aquatic larvae
but spend their adult lives on land. Thus, amphibians
have “both lives”. However, amphibians require moist
or aquatic environment for reproduction. Their eggs
have no shell
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and dry up easily. Some of the examples of amphibians are: frogs, salamanders, toads, and
caecilian.
Numerous fossils indicate that, as would be expected, the first amphibians were still quite
fishlike. In fact, they probably spent most of their time in the water. But as they progressively
exploited the ecological opportunities open to them on land, they slowly became a large and
diverse group. So numerous were they during the Carboniferous that period is often called the
age of Amphibians, just as the period before it, the Devonian, is called the Age of Fishes. The
amphibians were still abundant in the Permian, but during that period they slowly declined as the
members of a new class, the Reptilia, replace them.
The end of the Permian was a time of great change, both geological and biological. The
ancestral Appalachian Mountains were built up; the last placoderms disappeared; and older types
of corals, molluscs, echinoderms, crustaceans, and fishes were replaced by more modern
representatives of those groups. This so-called Permo- Triassic crisis also witnessed the
extinction of most groups of amphibians. By the end of the Triassic, the only members of this
class that survived were the immediate ancestors of the few small groups of modern Amphibia-
the salamanders, the burrowing, wormlike apodes (class apoda), and the frogs and toads.
e) Agnatha

The oldest vertebrate fossils are from the Ordovician period, which began some 500
million years ago. Those first vertebrate fossils are of bizarre fishlike animals covered by thick
plated of bony material. Though they had a skeleton, they lacked an important character found in

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all later vertebrates—jaws. Furthermore, most of them had no paired fins. These ancient fishes
constitute the class Agnatha.
This group consists of jaw-less animals that have smooth, scaleless, and long cylindrical
body. They also have a cartilaginous skeleton but they do not have vertebral column. Agnathans
are the only vertebtrates which retain a notochord through all stages of their lives. Lampreys and
hagfishes are examples of jawless fishes. Lampreys are characterized by a large head, a
notochord, and a sensory system.
The Agnatha continued as an important group, sharing the seas with the already abundant
sponges, coelenterates, molluscs (particularly gastropods and cephalopods), trilobites and
eurypterids, and echinoderms. But about 400 million years ago the Agnatha began to decline,
and they disappear from the fossil record by the end of the Devonian.
A few peculiar living today, the lampreys and the hagfishes, are generally classified as
Agnatha, though they are quite unlike the ancient armored species. The lampreys have a
larval filter- feeding stage that strikingly resembles amphioxus.

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f) Osteichthyes
Are true fish and are often referred to as bony fish. As such, they are characterized by
bone tissue (rather than cartilage). This is a large class, whose members are the dominant

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vertebrates in both freshwater and the oceans, as they have been since the Devonian—the so-
called Age of fishes.
The earliest members of this class
probably lived in freshwater. In addition to the
gills, they had lungs, which they probably used as
supplementary gas- exchange devices when the
water was stagnant and deficient in oxygen. There
are still a few living relict species with lungs.
Let as look more closely at the ancient lobe-
finned fishes. This group has long been known
from fossils, but until 1939 it was thought to have
been entirely extinct for some 75 million years. In
that year a specimen was caught off the east coast
of South Africa; since then, additional specimens of slideshare.com/kingdom-animalia
this living fossil, called the coelacanth (genus name Latimeria), have been caught and studied.
The coelacanths are not the particular lobe-fins thought to be ancestors of land vertebrates, but
they resemble those ancestral forms in many ways.
Some of the other characteristics associated with this group include fused teeth, lobed fins, and
a skull. It is the largest class of vertebrates. Fishes reproduce by spawning, the process by
which the female lays thousands of eggs in the water. Fertilization in most fishes is external and
takes place in the water. The male fish spreads sperm, called milt, over the eggs. These eggs
develop into embryos and then into young fishes. Members of the group include clownfish and
ray-finned fish among others.
(g) Chondrichthyes
Consists of organisms with
cartilaginous skeleton and are therefore
known as cartilaginous fishes. While a few
species have been identified in freshwater
environments, the majority of species are
found throughout the ocean. This class
includes sharks, rays, and skates. All have
skeletons which are made almost entirely of
cartilage. Unlike agnathans, chondrichthyes
have hinged jaws and paired fins.
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Though a cartilaginous skeleton might at first be taken as a primitive trait, it is not
thought to be one in Chondrichthyes. Their ancestors among the Placodermi probably had bony
skeletons, and the loss of the bone must be regarded as an evolutionary specialization.
Given that vertebrate animals comprise a single kingdom, they make up less than five (5) percent
of all known animals.
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 2. Phylum Porifera

The word porifera comes from the Latin

term poru, meaning pore and fera, meaning
bearers. Porifera means pore-bearers.
Includes organisms with holes. They are
primitive multicellular animals and have
cellular level of organization. They are
non-motile animals attached to some solid
support. The body design involves very
minimal differentiation and division into
tissues. They are commonly called sponges. slideshare.com/kingdom-animalia

They are generally marine and mostly asymmetrical animals. Sponges have a water
transport or canal system.
Water enters through minute pores (ostia) in the body wall into a central cavity, Spongocoel,
from where it goes out through the osculum. This pathway of water transport is helpful in food
gathering, respiratory exchange, and removal of waste. The body is supported by a skeleton
made up of spicules or sponging fibres.
Sexes are not separate (hermaphrodite), i.e., eggs and sperms are produced by the same
individual. Sponges reproduce asexually by fragmentation and sexually by formation of
gametes.
Fertilisation is internal and developmental is indirect having a larval stage which is
morphologically distinct from the adult.
Examples: Sycon (Scypha), Spongilla (fresh water sponge) and Euspongia (Bath sponge).
Among the free-living flagellated Protista are some collared organisms that closely resemble
the collar cells of sponges—cells found in no other organisms. For this reason many biologist
disagree, pointing out that larval sponges have no collar cells, and suggest that sponges arose
instead from a hollow free-swimming colonial flagellate. In any case, it seems likely that
sponges arose from the Protista independently of the other multicellular animals. The phylum
Porifera would then stand as an evolutionary development entirely separate from the rest of the
animal kingdom, and it must be concluded that multicellular animals evolve at least twice from
the protozoans.
3. Phylum Plathelminthes

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 The name of the phylum comes from the Greek
words, playts meaning flat and helmins meaning
worms, include organisms known as flatworms.
They are more complexly designed than the earlier
groups and bilaterally symmetrical.
Plathelminthes are triploblastic. This allows
outside and inside body linings as well as some
organs to be made. There is thus some degree of
tissue formation (organ level of organisation).
The body is flattened dorsiventrally, meaning
from top to bottom, which is why these animals are slideshare.com/kingdom-animalia

called flatworms. They may be freeliving or parasitic. Hooks and suckers are present in the
parasitic forms. Parasites are mostly endoparasites found in animals including human beings.
Some of them absorb nutrients from the host directly through their body surface. They are
Acoelomate: there is no true internal body cavity or coelom, in which developed organs can be
accommodated. Specialised cells called flame cells help in osmoregulation and excretion.
Sexes are not separate. Fertilisation in plathelminthes is internal and development is indirect.
Some members like Planaria possess high regeneration capacity. Some examples are freeliving
animals like planaria, or parasitic animal like.
The phyla Platyhelminthes contain what biologists generally regard as the most primitive
bilateral symmetrical animals.
Some of the organisms that belong to the Phylum Platyhelminthes include:
Turbellaria (e.g. Gyratrix hermaphrodites, Pseudoceros dimidiatus, Girardia tigrina)
Trematoda (e.g. Clonorchis sinensis, Schistosoma japonicum, and Metagonimus
yokogaya etc).
Cestoda (e.g. pork tapeworm, fish tapeworm, and Taenia taeniaeformis etc)
Class Turbellaria
The members of this class, of which the freshwater planarians are free-living flatworms
ranging from microscopic size to a length of several centimeters. The body is clothed by an
epidermal layer, which is usually ciliated (at least in part). Though a few turbellarians live on
land, most are aquatic (the majority marine).
Turbellarians usually have a gastrovascular cavity, but most members of one small order,
the Acoela, do not. For a variety of reasons (not just the absence of a digestive cavity), some
biologists have considered the Acoela the most primitive bilateral animals, and have suggested
that a primitive acoeloid organism might well have plex flatworms and the other metazoan phyla
probably evolved from such an acoeliod organism.

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Class Trematoda
The flukes are parasitic flatworms. They lack cilia, and have a thick cuticle secreted by
the cells below. This cuticle, being highly resistant to enzyme action, is an important adaptation
to a parasitic way of life. Flukes characteristically possess suckers, usually two or more, by
which they attach themselves to their host. A large portion of their bodies is occupied by
reproductive organs, including two or more large testes, an ovary, a long much-coiled uterus in
which eggs are stored prior to laying, and yolk glands.
Many flukes have very complicated life cycles involving two to four different kinds of
hosts. The blood fluke, Schistosoma japonicum, common in China, Japan, Taiwan, and the
Philippines, is a species with two hosts.

Class Cestoda
Adult tapeworms are long, flat, ribbonlike animals that live as internal parasites of
vertebrates, almost always in the intestine. However, the life cycle usually involves one or two
intermediate hosts, which may be invertebrate or vertebrate, depending on the species.
Tapeworms exhibit many special adaptations for their parasitic way of life. Like the
flukes, they have a resistant cuticle. And they have neither mouth nor digestive tract. Bathed by
the food in their host’s intestine, they absorb pre-digested nutrients across their general body
surface. Diffusion, probably augmented by active transport, suffices to provision all the cells,
because none are far from the surface.

4. Phylum Coelenterata (Cnidaria)

The phylum cnidarian is derived from the
cnidoblasts or cnidocytes (which contain the
stinging capsules or nematocytes) present on
the tentacles and the body. The nematocytes are
characteristics of the coelenterates; they are
found in no other phylum. Cnidoblasts are used
for anchorage, defense, and for the capture of
prey. They are aquatic, mostly marine sessile or
free-swimming radially symmetrical. They
exhibit tissue level of organization {have more
body design differentiation than sponges. slideshare.com/kingdom-animalia

Cnidaria have a central gastro-vascular cavity with a single opening. They are diploblastic.
Some of these species live in colonies (corals). Some have a solitary (living alone) like-span
(hydra). Some, e.g., corals have a skeleton composed of calcium carbonate. Cnidarians
exhibit two basic body forms called polyp and medusa. The former is a sessile and
cylindrical form like Hydra, Adamsia (Sea anemone) etc. whereas, the latter is umbrella-
shaped and free-swimming like Aurelia or jelly fish.

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 Those cnidarians which exist in both forms exhibit alternation of generation
(metagenesis),i.e., polyps produce medusa asexually and medusa form the polyps sexually
(e.g., Obelia). Digestion is extracellular and intracellular. Jellyfish and sea anemones are
common examples.
The hard corals that secrete a hard limy skeleton, have played a very important role in the
geologic history of the earth, particularly in tropical oceans. As their skeletons have accumulated
over the ages, they have formed many reefs, atolls, and islands, especially in the South Pacific.
The Great Barriers Reef, a coral ridge many kilometres wide that extends about 2, 000 km along
the eastern coast of Australia, is a particularly impressive example of the way these lowly
animals can change the face of the earth.
Speculations concerning the origin of the Metazoa (all multicellular animals that develop
from embryos) has long centered on the radiate phyla just discussed—not only because the
radiates, particularly the hydrozoan coelenterates, seem to be among the simplest metazoans, but
also because their saclike; essentially two- layered bodies strikingly resemble embryonic
gastrulas. Now, a spherical colonial flagellates like Volvox certainly resembles an embryonic
blastula. Many biologists believe that the ancestor of multicellular animals was a hollow- sphere
colonial ancestor, called a blastaea, through the formation of a planuloid larva.

5. Phylum Annelida
The name of the phylum comes from the
Latin term annulus, which means ring.
Earthwormsas well as leeches and many
segmented marine worms, are the Annelids.
They are aquatic (marine and freshwater) or
terrestrial; free-living, and sometimes
parasitic. Their body surface is distinctively
marked out into segments or metameres
(metamerically segmented) and, hence, the slideshare.com/kingdom-animalia

phylum name Annelida (Latin, annulus: little ring). They exhibit organ-system level of body.
They are coelomate (true body cavity). This allows true organs to be packaged in the body
structure. They are bilateral symmetric and triploblastic. They possess longitudinal and
circular muscles which help in locomotion. Aquatic annelids like Nereis possess lateral
appendages, parapodia, which help in swimming. A closed circulatory system is present.
Nephridia (sing. Nephridium) help in osmoregulation and excretion. Neural system consists of
paired ganglia, connected by lateral nerves to a double ventral nerve cord. Nereis, an aquatic
form, is dioecious (Sexes are separated), but earthworms and leeches are monoecious (having
both the male and female reproductive organs in the same individual). Reproductive is sexual.

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 Phylum Annelida is usually divided into three classes:
Class Polychaeta
Polychaetes are marine annelids with a well- defined head bearing eyes and antennae.
Each of the numerous body segments usually bears a pair of lateral appendages called
parapodia, which function in both locomotion and gas exchange. There are numerous stiff setae
(bristles) on the parapodia (the term ‘’polychaeta’’ means ‘’many chaetae’’,i.e. many setae).
Class Oligochaeta (The earthworms and their relatives)
The Class Oligochaeta contains the earthworms and many freshwater species. They differ
from polychaetes in that they lack a well-developed head and parapodia, have fewer setae (the
term ‘’OLigochaeta’’ means ‘’few setae’’), and usually have more complete intersegmental
partitions.
Class Hirudinea (The leeches)
The leeches, which probably evolved from oligochaetes, are the most specialized
annelids. They have no bristles, and their body is often flattened and tapered at both ends. The
first and last segments are modified to form suckers, with the posterior one much the larger. The
suckers may use for locomotion, propelling the animal inchworm fashion. Leeches show almost
no internal segmentation.
Some leeches are predatory, capturing invertebrate prey such as worms, snails, and insect
larvae and swallowing them whole. More familiar are the bloodsuckers, which attack a variety of
vertebrate hosts.

6. Phylum Mollusca

Mollusca comes from the Latin term mollis, which means

soft. The body of most mollusks iscovered and protected by a
hard shell made of calcium carbonate. They are terrestrial or
aquatic. They exhibit organ-system level of organization.

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Molluscs are bilaterally symmetrical, triploblastic, and coelomates animals. There is little
segmentation. They have an open circulatory system and kidney- like organs for excretion.
The anterior head region has sensory tentacles. The mouth contains a file-like rasping organ for
feeding, called radula. They are usually dioecious and oviparous with indirect development.
The body of molluscs is covered by a calcareous shell and is unsegmented with a distinct head,
muscular foot and visceral hump. A soft and spongy later of skin forms a mantle over the
visceral hump. slideshare.com/kingdom-animalia

The phylum Mollusca is the second largest in the animal kingdom; it contains nearly 100,
000 living species and 35, 000 fossil species. Among the best- known molluscs are snails and
logs, squid and octopuses, clams and oysters. The various groups of molluscs may differ
considerably in outward appearance, but most have fundamentally similar body plans.
The mollusca are customarily divided into six classes: Aphineura, Monoplacophora,
Gaatropoda, Scaphoda, Pelecycopoda, and Cephalocopoda.

Classes Amphineura and Monoplacophora

These two classes are of interest from an evolutionary point of view. The amphineura are
generally regarded as the most primitive of living members of the mollusca, and the
Monoplacophora provide information on the ancestry of the molluscs.
The best- known Amphineura are the chitons, which have an ovoid bilaterally
symmetrical body with a shell consisting of eight serially arranged dorsal plates. They have an
anterior mouth and a posterior anus. The coelom is reduced to a small cavity surrounding the
heart.
Members of the Monoplacophora have long been known as fossils; they were generally
thought to be extinct until 1952, when ten living specimens (genus Neopilina) were dredge from
a deep trench in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Costa Rica.
These specimens sparked a lively debate on the ancestry of the Mollusca, because they
show some internal segmentation, a characteristic seen in no other members of the phylum. Since
it was already known that the early cleavage pattern and larval type of molluscs show striking
similarities to the corresponding developmental stages in the segmented worms (Annelida), the
segmentation of Neopilina led many biologists to conclude that the ancestral molluscs were
segmented animals, perhaps primitive annelids. Many other biologists, however, are convinced
that the segmentation of Neopilina is secondary, not primitive, and that the original molluscan
body was unsegmented. Whichever view is correct, it seems clear that the Mollusca and the
Annelida are fairly closely related.

Class Gastropoda (The snails and their relarives)

Most gastropods have a coiled shell. In some cases, however, the coiling is minimal.
Some species—e.g. the nudibranchs and slugs—have lost the shell.

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 The early larva for gastropods is bilateral, but as it develops, the digestive tract bends
downward and forward until the anus comes to lie close to the mouth. Then the entire visceral
mass rotates through an angle of 180 degrees, coming to lie dorsal to the head in the anterior part
of the body. Most of the visceral organs on one side (usually the left) atrophy, and growth
proceeds asymmetrically, producing the characteristic spiral.
Except for the peculiar twisting and coiling of their bodies, gastropods are thought to be
rather like the ancestral molluscs. They have a distinct head with well-developed sense organs,
and most have a well- develop radula.
Gastropods occur in a great variety of habitats. The majority are marine, and their often
large and decorative shells are among the most prized finds on a beach, but there are also many
freshwater species and some that live on land. The land snails are among the few groups of fully
terrestrial invertebrates. In most of them, the gills are absent, nut the mantle cavity has become
very highly vascularized and functions as a lung.

Class Bivalvia (The bivalve molluscs)

As the term ‘’bivalve’’ indicates, these animals have a two-part shell. The two parts, or
bivalves, are usually similar in shape and size and are hinged on one side (the animal’s dorsum).
The animal opens and shuts them by means of large muscles. Among the more common bivalves
are clams, oysters, scallops, cockles, file shells, and mussels. Most lead rather sedentary lives as
adults. Bivalves which have no radula, are filter feeders, straining tiny food particles from the
water flowing across their gills.

Class Cephalopoda (Squids, octopuses, and their relatives

In these animals the foot is divided into a number of tentacles that surround the well-
developed head, hence the name’’cephalopod,’’ which means ‘’head footed.’’ Many of the
cephalopos bear little outward resemblance to other molluscs. Unlike their sedentary relatives,
they are often specialized for rapid locomotion and a predatory way of life—for killing and
eating large prey, such as fishes or crabs. Though fossil cephalopods often have large shells,
these are much reduced or absent in most modern forms.
Some species attain large size, often being several meters long. The giant squids
(Architeuthis) of the North Atlantic are the largest living invertebrates; the biggest recorded
individual was 17 meter long (including the tentacles) and weighted approximately 2 tons.
Octopuses never grow anywhere near this size.
Cephalopods, particularly squids, have convergently evolved many similarities to
vertebrates. For example, squids have internal cartilaginous braincase rather like a skull.
Furthermore, they have an exceeding well-developed nervous system with a large and complex
brain. Perhaps the most striking of all the squids’ similarities to vertebrats are their large camera-
type image-forming eyes, which work the way ours do.

7. Phylum Arthropoda

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 Ants and other insects, as well as spiders,
scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, crabs, and
lobsters, are all arthropods. The name of the
phylum comes from the Greek arthron which
means joint and pous means foot. Phylum
Arthropoda is the most numerous and largest
phylum under the kingdom Animalia. Have hard
external shells called “exoskeletons,’’segmented
bodies and jointed legs. They exhibit organ –
system level of organisation. They are bilaterally
symmetrical,
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triploblastic, segmented and coelomate. The coelomic cavity is blood-filled.

The body of arthropods is covered by chitinous. The body consists of head, thorax and
abdomen. There is an open circulatory system, and so the blood does not flow and well defined
blood vessels. Respiratory organs are gills, book gills, book lungs or tracheal system. Sensory
organs like antennae, eyes, (compound and simple), statocysts or balance organs are present.
Excretion takes place through malpighian tubules. They are mostly dioecious. Fertilization is
usually internal. They are mostly oviparous. Development may be direct or indirect.
The phylum Arthropoda is by far the largest of the phyla. Nearly a million species have been
described, and there are doubtless hundreds of thousands more yet to be discovered. Probably
more than 80 percent of all animal species on earth belong to this phylum.
Arthropods were very abundant in the Paleozoic seas, and fossils from that era are plentiful.
Particularly common in rocks of the first half of the Paleozoic are the fossils of an extinct group
the Trilobita. The fossils show a usually oval and flattened shape and three body regions; a head,
apparently composed of four fused segments, that bore a pair of slender antennae and, often,
compound eyes; a thorax consisting of a variable number of separate segments; and an abdomen,
composed of several fuse segments. Trilobites, though they were surely different from the first
arthropods, exhibiting specializations of their own e.g. the longitudinal furrows and the fusion of
the abdominal segments), nevertheless seem to approach the hypothetical arthropod ancestor
more closely than any other known group. One primitive character stands out- the lack of
specialization and structural differentiation of the appendages. The fossils show that every
segment bore a pair of legs, and that all these legs, including those of the four head segments,
were nearly identical.

Phylum Arthropoda are classified into three main classes that include:
Class Arachnida

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 These are the spiders, ticks, mites, daddy longlegs, scorpions, and their relatives. Though
the various groups of arachnids differ structurally in many ways, most have two body regions: a
cephalothorax and an abdomen (these are not distinguishable in ticks, mites, or daddy longlegs).
There are often simple eyes on the cephalothorax but never any compound eyes or antennae.
Class Crustaceans
Some representatives of the class, such as crayfish, lobsters, shrimps, and crabs are the
well known to most people. But there are many other species of Crustacea, which bear little
superficial resemblance to these familiar animals; among them are fairy shrimps, water fleas,
brine shrimps, sand hoppers, barnacles, and sow bugs; many of these are very small, old- looking
creatures.
Crustacean characteristically have two pairs of antennae, a pair of mandibles, and two
pairs of maxillae. But their other appendages vary greatly from group to group, and whatever
could be said about those of one group, such as crayfish and lobsters, would have little relevance
to those of other groups. In fact, the Crustacea are an enormously diverse assemblage of animals
that can hardly be characterized in any simple way. Some have a cephalothorax and an abdomen;
others have a head and a trunk, or a head, a thorax, and an abdomen; or even a unified body.
Most are free-living, but some are parasitic. Most are active swimmers, but some, like barnacles,
secrete a shell and are sedentary. The majority are marine, but there are many freshwater species,
and a few, such as sow bugs, are terrestrial and have a simple tracheal system. We could go on
listing divergences, but the point has been made that this group shows amazing diversity. This is
a class in which the basic arrangement of a segmented body with numerous jointed appendages
has been modified and exploited in countless ways as the members of the class have diverged
into different habitats and adopted different modes of life.
Class Insecta
This is an enormous group of diverse animals that occupy almost every conceivable
habitat on land and in freshwater. If numbers are the criterion by which to judge biological
success, then the insects are the most successful group of animals that has ever lived; there are
more species of insects than of all other animal groups combined. But there is one restriction on
their dominant role: They do not occur in the sea (though a few species walk on the ocean
surface or live in brackish water); the role played by insects on land is played in the sea by
Crustacea.
There are a few insect fossils from Devonian, but it was in the Carboniferous and
Permian periods that insects took their place as one of the dominant groups of animals. By the
end of Paleozoic era, many of the modern orders had appeared, and the number of species was
enormous. A second great period of evolutionary radiation began in the Cretaceous and
continues to the present time; this time radiation is correlated with the rise of flowering plants.

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Bees, wasps, beetles, mosquitoes, flies, grasshopper, ants, butterflies, moths, and dragonflies and
damselflies are common types of insects.

8. Phylum Hemichordata

The term Hemichordata—from the Greek

hemi, meaning ‘’half,’’ and chorde, meaning
‘’string,’’thus, ‘’half chordate’’—was first proposed
because the buccal diverticulum, a tubular outgrowth
from the mouth cavity forward into the proboscis, or
‘’snout,’’ resembled a rudimentary notochord—the
dorsal, or back-side, supporting axis of the more
primitive vertebrates.

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animalia

Hemichordate was earlier considered as a sub-phylum under phylum Chordata. But now
it is placed as a separate phylum under non-chordata. This phylum consists of a small group of
worm-like marine animals with organ-system level of organisation. They are cylindrical
(bilateral symmetrical), triploblastic, coeloate animals. The body is Circulatory system is of open
type. Respiratory takes place through gills. Excretory organ is present. Sexes are separate.
Fertilisation is external. Development is indirect. Examples: balanoglossus and Saccoglossus.
The hemichordates, many of which belong to a class called acorn worms, are marine
animals often found living in U shaped burrows in sand or mud along the coast. They are fairly
large, ranging from 6 and a half to 43 cm in length, and their bodies consist of an anterior conical
proboscis (thought by some to resemble an acorn- hence their name), a collar, and a long trunk.
Another important characteristic of hemichordates is the occurrence during development of a
ciliated larval stage that strikingly resembles the larvae of some echinoderms.
It may seem strange that the Echinodermata form the major phylum generally considered
most closely related to our own phylum, the Chordata. After all, sea stars, sea urchins, and sea
cucumbers don’t look like animals with which one would expect to claim kinship.

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 The Hemichordata have long held special interest for zoologists because their apparent
affinities to both the Echinodermata and the Chordata seem to provide additional evidence of a
relationship between those two large and important phyla.
The most obvious resemblance of hemichordates to chordates is their possession of
pharyngeal gill slits, which are found in all chordates but nowhere else in animal kingdom. The
hemichordates also have a dorsal nerve cord that is sometimes hollow and resembles the dorsal
hollow nerve cord characteristic of chordates. Because of these resemblances, the hemichordates
were regarded for many years as primitive members of the phylum Chordata. Though they are
now generally regarded as a separate phylum, which may actually be closer to the echinoderms
than to the chordates, recognition of their ties with both Chordata and Echinodermata has helped
clarify the phylogenetic relationship between these two major groups. Note that there is no
suggestion here that chordates evolved from echinoderms, but simply that the two groups
diverged from a common ancestor at some remote time.

9. Phylum Echinodermata
Phylum Echinodermata comes from the Greek
word echinos which means hedgehog and derma which
means skin. A hedgehog is an animal that has many
spines. Echinodermata means spiny-skinned animals.
These animals have an endoskeleton of calcareous
ossicles (calcium carbonate structures) and, hence,
the name Echinodermata (spiny skinned organisms).
They are exclusively free- living marine animals with
organ-system level of organisation. They are
triploblastic with a coelomic cavity (coelomate animals). The adult
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echinoderms are radially symmetrical but larvae are bilaterally symmetrical. Water-driven
tube system (water vascular system) are used for locomotion, capture and transport of food and
respiration. They are triploblastic and coelomate animals. Digestive system is complete. An
excretory system is absent. Sexes are separate. Reproduction is sexual. Fertilization is
usually external. Development is indirect with free-swimming larva. Examples: Starfish, Sea
urchin, Sea lily, Sea cucumber, Brittle star
The sea stars (class Asteroidea)
The body of a sea star (starfish) consists of a central disc and usually five rays, or arms,
each with a groove bearing rows of tube feet running along the middle of its lower surface. The
outer surface of the animal is studded with many short spines and numerous tiny skin gills,

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which are thin finger like projections of the body wall that protrude to the outside between the
plates of the endoskeleton.
Other Echinoderm classes
There are four classes of echinoderms: (1) Ophiuroidea, the brittle stars, serpent stars, and
basket stars. (2) Echinoidea, the sand dollars, heart urchins, and sea urchins; (3) holothuroidea,
the sea cucumbers; and (4) Crinoidea, the sea lilies, which are the most primitive group. Though
members of these four classes often show little superficial resemblance to sea stars, their
structure is fundamentally similar. For example, sea urchins and sea cucumbers lack the five
arms of most sea stars, but they do have five bands of tube feet and thus show the same basic
five- part symmetry.
10. Phylum Ctenophora
Ctenophore, byname Comb
Jelly, any of the numerous marine
invertebrates constituting the
phylum Ctenophora. The phylum
derives its name (from the Greek
ctene, or ‘’comb,’’ and phora, or
‘’bearer’’) from the series of
vertical ciliary combs over the
surface of the animal.
Ctenophore are commonly
known as sea
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walnuts or comb jellies. They exclusively marine, radially symmetrical, diploblastic. They
exhibit tissue level of organisation.The body bears eight external rows of ciliated comb plates,
which help in locomotion. Digestion is both extracellular and intracellular.
Bioluminescence (the property of a living organism to emit light) is well-marked in
ctenophores. Sexes are not separate and reproduction takes place only by sexual means.
Fertilisation is external (fertilization occurs outside the body) with indirectdevelopment
(zygote – larvae – animal). Examples: Pleurobrachia and ctenoplana.

11. Phylum Aschelminthes (Nematoda)

Nematodes belong to Phylum Nematoda. The

name of the phylum comes from the Greek

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nematos which means thread and helmins meaning worms. Body is cylindrical {bilateral
symmetrical} rather than flattened. They exhibit organ-system level of body organization {there
are tissue, but no real organs}. They are triploblastic. A sort of body cavity or a
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pseudocoelom, is present. They are free living, aquatic, terrestrial or parasitic in plants and
animals.These are very familiar as parasitic worms causing diseases, such as the worms causing
elephantiasis (filarial worms) or the worms in the intestines (roundworm or pinworms). The body
is circular in cross-section, hence, the name roundworms. Alimentary canal is complete. An
excretory tube removes body wastes from the body cavity through the excretory pore. Sexes are
separate (dioecious),i.e., males and females are distinct. Often females are longer than males.
Fertilization is internal and development may be direct (the young ones resemble the adult) or
indirect.
The Aschelminthes are generally small, wormlike animals that lack a well-defined head, and
have a straight or slightly curved complete digestive tract and a cuticle. There is no circulatory or
respiratory system. A flame-cell excretory system occurs in most classes but not in nematodes,
which have a special type of excretory system unique with them.
The roundworms (class Nematoda) are all remarkably similar in form; they have round,
elongate bodies that usually taper nearly to a point at each end. They have no cilia or flagella;
even the sperm lack flagella (they are amoeboid). The body is enclosed in a tough cuticle. Just
under the epidermal layer of the body wall are bundles of longitudinal muscles; there are no
circular muscles. Nematodes are extremely abundant, and occur in almost every type of habitat.
Of the many that are free-living in soil or water, most are very tiny, often microscopic. A single
spadeful of garden soil may contain a million or more. A single rotting apple may have 90, 000.
Many other nematodes are internal parasites of plants or animals; these also are often small, but
some may attain a length of one meter.

Reference

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Agu KC. (2012). Vertebrates

Barnes R.D. 1980. Invertebrate Zoology. W.B.

Saunders Company. Philadelhia

Borror D.J. and D.M. Delong 1964. An Introduction To The Study of Insects. Holt,
Rinehart & Winston. New York.

Innovative Educational Material. INC.

Science Technology II (Biology BEC-based)

Jessop. N. M. 1988. Zoology (Schaum’s Outline Series).

McGraw-Hill Book Company. New York.

Joshua Bishop Roby. (2009). Animal Kingdom

Kevin Pang and Mark Q. Martindale Ctenophores.

Margulis L.K.V. Schwartz and M. Dolan. 1994

The Illustrated Five Kingdoms: A Guide To The diversity of Life On Earth.
Harpercollins College Publishers. New York.

P.S Verma and S. Chand. (2013). Chordate Zoology

Richard E. Blackwelder. (1963).

Classification of the ANIMAL KINGDOMa

Storer. TI and K.L . Usinger 1957. General Zoology

McGraw-Hill Book Company. Inc. New York.

Teresa Adell et al. 2015.

Platyhelminthes.

Thomas Jankowski and Boris Anokhin. (2019)

Phylum Cnidaria.

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