Species Profile
Ptychodera flava
Acorn worm
KingdomAnimalia
PhylumHemichordata
ClassEnteropneusta
OrderUnknown
FamilyUnknown
Introduction
Ptychodera flava is a free-living marine animal.
It inhabits shallow sandy and muddy shores.
It is important for studying chordate ancestry.
Size & Structure
01
Long worm-like body
02
Yellowish to light brown colour
03
Large proboscis for burrowing
04
Numerous gill slits in trunk
Ptychodera flava — 3D Model
No 3D model available
General Features
- Coelom
- Enterocoelous coelom
- Body plan
- Tube within a tube body plan (Deuterostomous)
- Germ layer
- Triploblastic
- Metamerism
- Absent (proboscis, collar, trunk present)
- Body symmetry
- Bilateral symmetry
- Fertilization
- External
- Digestion type
- Complete (extracellular digestion)
- Nervous system
- Diffuse nerve net with dorsal nerve cord
- Excretory organ
- Proboscis gland with glomerulus
- Body temperature
- Poikilothermic, euryhaline
- Circulatory type
- Present, open circulation, single
- Development type
- Indirect (tornaria larva)
- Respiratory type
- Gill slits and diffusion
- Mode of excretion
- Ammonotelism
- Circulation system
- Open
- Skeleton structure
- Absent
- Level of Organisation
- Organ level
- Regulation of Osmosis
- Osmoconformer
Ecology
Mixes and aerates marine sediments
Feeds on detritus and microbes
Part of coastal benthic food web
Economic Importance
Model organism in evolution studies
Used in developmental biology
Helps understand origin of chordate traits