Phylum Echinodermata

“spiny skin”

Characteristics

• Most adult echinoderms have pentaradial symmetry (5 radii or multiples of 5)

• Free swimming larva
• Larva has bilateral symmetry
• Endoskeleton made of CaCOs plates called ossicles
• Ossicles may be attached to spines or spicules that protrude through the skin
• Water vascular tissue
• Tube feet aid in respiration, locomotion, feeding, excretion
• Nervous system but no brain
• Separate sexes (not hermaphrodites)
• No circulatory, respiratory, or excretory systems
• Deuterosomes: embryo developed anus before mouth

History

• Fossil records: echinoderms dating back 500 million years, Cambrian Era
• Ancestors: sessile
• Modern: only 80 sessile species
• Echinoderms are deuterosomes, arthropods are protosomes (develop mouth first),
chordates are deuterosomes; therefore echinoderms more closely related to chordates

Classification

Class Crinoidea
• Sea lilies, feather stars
• Sessile; attached to rocks with a long stalk
• Has upward-facing mouth
• Arms contain sticky tube feet used to capture food & bring it to the mouth
• Arms used for respiration

Class Ophiuroidea
• “snake-like”
• Very long, flexible, narrow arms that move quickly
• Ex. Basket Star
o Has branched arms that form numerous coils & look like tentacles
o Live on ocean floor beneath rocks & coral reefs
o Use arms to rake in food
o Use tube feet to capture food with mucus strands located in between spines
Class Echinoidea
• “spine-like” “hedgehog-like”
• Sea urchins
o Test: compact, rigid, circular endoskeleton
o Live on ocean floor
o Move with tube feet
o Aristotle’s Lantern: complex jaw-like mechanism; 5 teeth surround the mouth to
scrape off algae from hard surfaces
o Have spines that can be short & flat or long & thin or wedge-shaped
o Some sea urchins have hollow spines that contain venom used for defence
• sand dollars
o short & broad
o adapted for shallow burrowing
o short spines for locomotion & burrowing
o use tube feet to capture food that lands on its body

Class Holothuroidea
• sea cucumbers
• live on ocean floor
• use tube feet for locomotion
• can crawl or burrow
• armless
• has small ossicles  soft (small) endoskeleton
• tentacles: modified tube feet around the mouth that sweep up food
• may eject internal organs through anus when threatened (called evisceration)
 Starfish

External Structures
• top side: aboral surface
• bottom side: oral surface
• Central region: central disc
• 5 arms covered in ossicles; protective spines
• On the spines of each arm are tiny pincers called pedicellariae which clean the surface of
any organism that might grow on it

Water Vascular System

• System of water-filled canals connected at the end by tube feet
Sieve Plate • Water enters through pore called madreporite
↓ • Water travels down stone canal which leads to the ring canal
Madreporite • From the ring canal, 5 radial canals branch away, leading to 2 rows
↓
of tube feet per arm
Stone Canal
↓ • Valves prevent backflow so water is directional
Ring Canal • At the end of each tube foot is an ampullae which are bulb-like sacs
↓ that are squeezed by muscles to force water into the tube foot
Radial Canal • When muscles relax water returns to ampullae, shortening or
↓ deflating the tube feet
Ampullae &
• The inflation of tube feet allows for suction-cup method of movement
Tube Feet
• Muscle contractions create hydrostatic pressure which in turn permits
movement

Digestive System
• Mouth on oral surface & is connected by a small esophagus to the cardiac stomach
• Cardiac stomach can be evaginated (“expelled”)
• Cardiac stomach passes food to the pyloric stomach
• Pyloric stomach attached to the digestive glands on each arm
• Cardiac stomach/pyloric stomach/digestive glands secrete enzymes to break down food
• Food absorbed through the walls of the digestive gland
• Sea stars eat clams, mussels, molluscs, oysters, worms, other slow moving animals
o sea star clamps onto the clam & begins using to pull the clam open
o the clam gets tired & opens a bit
o sea star evaginates the cardiac stomach through the opening
o cardiac stomach digests the inside of the clam
o cardiac stomach is retracted
Other Body Systems
• no circulatory, excretory, or respiratory system
• fluid in the coelom bathes the organs & distributes nutrients & oxygen
• gas exchange & waste excretion take place by diffusion through the thin walls of the tube
feet & through the skin gills (hollow tubes that project from the coelom lining)

Nervous System
• no brain
• central disc contains the nerve ring
• nerve ring branches off into a radial nerve cord for each arm
• if radial nerve is cut/damaged the arm it is specified for loses function
• if ring nerve is cut, all arms lose coordination
• nerve net controls the movement of the spines, pedicellariae, & skin gills
• eyespot at the end of each arm that responds to light, touch, and chemicals

Reproduction
• each arm has 2 gonads (m) or ovaries (f)
• females produce 200 million eggs each year
• fertilization occurs externally
• larva called bipinnaria
o bilaterally symmetrical
o free swimming
• metamorphosis begins after ≈ 2 months
• adult will have pentaradial symmetry
• some species perform asexual reproduction by splitting at the central disc (see below)

Regeneration
• sea star can regenerate arms from the central disc
• takes ≈ 1 year
• defence mechanism
• some species perform asexual reproduction by splitting at the central disc