Characteristic Features of Phylum Arthropoda

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Phylum anthropoda
Characteristic features of Phylum Arthropoda
 The body structure shows bilateral symmetry.
 They are triploblastic.
 They can be found in all types of habitats – land, water and soil.
 They have jointed limbs.
 The body is segmented into three regions – Head, Thorax and Abdomen.
 The body cavity is filled with blood and is called the haemocoel. The blood is white in
colour.
 The exoskeleton is hardened and is made of chitin.
 They have a well-developed central nervous system.
 The head is well developed and bears the sensory organs and brain.
 They have compound eyes and mosaic vision.
 The digestive tract is complete with the mouth and anus at opposite ends of the body.
 They have an open circulatory system with dorsal heart and arteries.
 Respiration is through the general body surface or by gills in aquatic forms and through
trachea or book lungs in terrestrial forms.
 Sexes are separate and sexual dimorphism is exhibited.
Phylogeny and Adaptive radiation
Trilobites
Trilobites are often considered exemplary for understanding the Cambrian explosion of animal
life, due to their unsurpassed diversity and abundance. These biomineralized arthropods
appear abruptly in the fossil record with an established diversity, phylogenetic disparity, and
provincialism at the beginning of Cambrian Series 2 (∼521 Ma), suggesting a protracted but
cryptic earlier history that possibly extends into the Precambrian. However, recent analyses
indicate elevated rates of phenotypic and genomic evolution for arthropods during the early
Cambrian, thereby shortening the phylogenetic fuse. Furthermore, comparatively little research
has been devoted to understanding the duration of the Cambrian explosion, after which normal
Phanerozoic evolutionary rates were established.
Chelicerata
Chelicerata probably appeared during the Cambrian period. Their precise origins remain
unclear, but may lie among the so-called great appendage arthropods. By the late Cambrian
there is evidence for both Pycnogonida and Euchelicerata. Relationships between the principal
euchelicerate lineages are unresolved, but Xiphosura, Eurypterida and Chasmataspidida (the
last two extinct), are all known as body fossils from the Ordovician. The fourth group,
Arachnida, was found monophyletic in most recent studies. Arachnids are known unequivocally
from the Silurian (a putative Ordovician mite remains controversial), and the balance of
evidence favours a common, terrestrial ancestor. Recent work recognises four principal
arachnid clades: Stethostomata, Haplocnemata, Acaromorpha and Pantetrapulmonata, of
which the pantetrapulmonates (spiders and their relatives) are probably the most robust
grouping. Stethostomata includes Scorpiones (Silurian–Recent) and Opiliones (Devonian–
Recent), while Haplocnemata includes Pseudoscorpiones (Devonian–Recent) and Solifugae
(Carboniferous–Recent). Recent works increasingly favour diphyletic mite origins, whereby
Acaromorpha comprises Actinotrichida (Devonian–Recent), Anactinotrichida (Cretaceous–
Recent) and Ricinulei (Carboniferous–Recent). The positions of the Phalangiotarbida (Devonian–
Permian) and Palpigradi (Neogene–Recent) are poorly resolved. Finally, Pantetrapulmonata
includes the following groups (listed here in their most widely recovered phylogenetic
sequence): Trigonotarbida (Silurian–Permian), Uraraneida (Devonian–Permian), Araneae
(Carboniferous–Recent), Haptopoda (Carboniferous), Amblypygi (?Devonian–Recent),
Thelyphonida (Carboniferous–Recent) and Schizomida (Paleogene–Recent).
Shared derived characters between annelids and arthropods gave strong support to the
hypothesis that both phyla originated from a line of coelomate segmented protostomes, which
in time diverged to form a protoannelid line with laterally located parapodia and one or more
protoarthropod lines with more ventrally located appendages.
Controversial existence whether monophyletic or polyphyletic but have sister taxons that
explains somewhat relations with the lesser protostomes.
Annelids show limited tagmatization and little differentiation of appendages. However, in

arthropods an adaptive trend has been toward pronounced tagmatization by differentiation or
fusion of somites, giving rise in more derived groups to such tagmata as head and trunk; head,
thorax, and abdomen; or cephalothorax (fused head and thorax) and abdomen. The primitive
arthropod condition is to have similar appendages on each somite, and each somite bears a pair
of appendages. More derived forms have appendages specialized for specific functions, or
some somites lack appendages entirely.
Much of the amazing diversity in arthropods seems to have developed because of modification
and specialization of their cuticular exoskeleton and their jointed appendages, resulting in a
wide variety of locomotor and feeding adaptations.
Monophyletic group -a group of organisms descended from a single ancestor , whereas a

polyphyletic taxon is composed of unrelated organisms descended from more than one
ancestor.
Cambrian explosion, the unparalleled emergence of organisms between 541 million and

approximately 530 million years ago at the beginning of the Cambrian Period. The event
was characterized by the appearance of many of the major phyla (between 20 and 35) that
make up modern animal life.
Protostomes - the clade of animals once thought to be characterized by the formation of

the organism's mouth before its anus during embryonic development. ... Well known
examples of protostomes are nematodes, arthropods, flatworms, annelids and molluscs.

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Characteristic features of Phylum Arthropoda

 The body structure shows bilateral symmetry.

 They are triploblastic.

 They have jointed limbs.

 The exoskeleton is hardened and is made of chitin.

 They have a well-developed central nervous system.

 The head is well developed and bears the sensory organs and brain.

 They have compound eyes and mosaic vision.

 They have an open circulatory system with dorsal heart and arteries.

 Sexes are separate and sexual dimorphism is exhibited.

Phylogeny and Adaptive radiation

Annelids show limited tagmatization and little differentiation of appendages. However, in

Monophyletic group -a group of organisms descended from a single ancestor , whereas a

Cambrian explosion, the unparalleled emergence of organisms between 541 million and

Protostomes - the clade of animals once thought to be characterized by the formation of

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