Echinoderms:
Describe the appearance of an ancestral bilaterian.
Using the sea star or sea urchin as an example, be able to explain each of the following
echinoderm features:
how the water vascular system is used for locomotion and
how the skin rids itself of "settling" larvae and ectoparasites.
Why the body's supporting structure is called an "endoskeleton"?
Why these animals are called "spiny-skinned"?
Again using the sea star or sea urchin as an example, describe major echinoderm systems
(water vascular, circulatory, digestive, reproductive and nervous).
Be able to describe the general appearance and feeding habits of the different
echinoderm groups. Note especially features unique to sea urchins and sea cucumbers, “
the thick echinoderms”.
What is unusual about some brittle star ability to respond to light? How do they move
relative to sea stars?
Which group is used as a model system for developmental studies.
Be able to compare the appearance of sand dollars to sea urchins.
Describe an Aristotle’s lantern. Which echinoderm class most resembles an ancestral
echinoderm.
Describe the typical life cycle of an echinoderm. Why are echinoderms considered
cloning animals?
What are the Concentricycloids?
Chordata and relatives:
Describe the hemichordate bauplan. Be able to recognize diagrams and compare
acornworms and Pterobranchs. Are they more closely related to Echinoderms or
chordates? How do acorn worms move? Do they produce larvae.
What are the defining features of the phylum, Chordata? Be able to compare
Hemichordates and Chordates. Know which stages of the life cycle in each group
displays the defining features of the phylum Chordata.
Describe the features of tunicates that make them chordates. Describe the basic bauplan
of a tunicate. How do these organisms feed and reproduce?
Deacribe the major groups of tunicates.
What is a pharyngeal basket and what purpose does it serve?
Identify the notochord. What is its function?
What are the similarities between a tunicate tadpole larva and a lancelet? How do
lancelets move?
Why are echinoderms and chordates considered to be closely related? Are hemichordates
more closely related to chinoderms or chordates?
Both tunicates and lancelets are filter feeders. What are the similarities in their feeding
mechanisms.
What are xenoturbellids? What does their bauplan indicate about the ancestral
deuterostome’s bauplan?