Systematics Lab

• Corals are invertebrate, marine, and colonial animals.
• Tentacles for defense, capturing prey, and leading it to the mouth.
• Nematocysts are stinging cells.
• Zooxanthellae - special type of algae, aids in photosynthesis.
• Coralite - cup-like skeleton that serves as the polyps home.
• Polyps is shaped like a cylinder, with a mouth at one end, surrounded by tentacles.
• Mouth - where food enters and wastes are expelled.
• Encrusting - thin, plate-like corals which grow along or over the existing substrate. These corals tend to be very effective at out-competing or overgrowing existing living substrate such as sponges and other corals.
• Hemispherical - are very slow growing but tend to be very resilient. They are major contributor to the long-term, solid structure of the reefs, and live to be tens of thousands of years old.
• Tabular - large, table shaped corals which create a very diverse habitat for both small fishes, and large fishes' underneath. They are generally made up of corals of the branching corymbose, or digitate shapes, which grow horizontally at one depth, instead of increasing the height.
• Corymbose - also known as "crazy" branching. Irregular, dense, bushy like corals. These corals require strong sunlight and currents in order to grow. They provide very diverse and complex habitats for juvenile reef fish and invertebrates.
• Branching - grows in a 'dendritic' or tree-like shape. Long tapered branches with regular splitting. One of the fastest growing forms, as all of the polyps on a branch contribute to skeletal growth in a single direction.
• Cnidaria - Anthozoa - Coral
• Philippine vulnerable coral species due to climate change, pollution, overfishing, and destructive fishing practices.
• Vulnerable coral species found in Philippines: Staghorn, Table, Lettuce, Plate, Brain, Elkhorn, and Mushroom coral.
• Mollusca means soft body, since the earliest description of mollusks came from observations of unshelled cuttlefish.
• Mollusks display a wide range of morphologies but share a few key characteristics, including a muscular foot, visceral mass containing internal organs, and a mantle that may or may not secrete a shell of calcium carbonate.
• A tongue-like organ called a radula, which bears chitinous tooth-like ornamentation, is present in many species, and serves to shred or scrape food.
• The mantle is the dorsal epidermis in mollusks; shelled mollusks are specialized to secrete a chitinous and hard calcareous shell.
• Classes of molluska: aplacophora, monoplacophora, polyplacophora, gastropoda, cephalopoda, bivalvia, scaphopoda.
• Molluscan species are in grave danger due to various threats such as: exploitation, pollution, habitat alteration or destruction, introduced species, and over-collecting.
• Tridacna derasa and tridacna gigas are the two molluscan species that are endangered in the Philippines.
• Arthropods are characterized by their segmented bodies, jointed limbs, and an exoskeleton made of chitin.
• The body division of trilobitomorpha includes the head, abdomen, and pygidium
• Merostomata survivors are often used as laboratory animals by physiologists.
• Common characteristics of arthropods is that they have a segmented body, jointed appendages, and a hard exoskeleton.
• Subphylum chelicerata consists of arachnida and merstomata.
• Subphylum crustacea consists of cephalocarida, branchiopoda, remipedia, maxillopoda, ostracoda, and malacostraca.
• Subphylum Myriapoda consists of chilopoda, diploda, symphyla, and pauropoda.
• Subphylum Hexapoda consists of entognatha and insecta.
• Insecta is the largest group within the arthropod phylum.
• Subphylum onychophora consists of peripatidae and peripatopsidae.
• Vulnerable arthropod species in the Philippines includes butterfly, beetles, dragonfly, and damselfly.
• Echinoderms means spiky or pricky skinned.
• echinos means hedgehog and derma means skin.
• first used for echinoids / sea urchin which was introduced by Jacob Klein (1734)
• 1847 - was recognized as a group distinct to Radiata by Leukart
• Pentaceros:

  • Central disc is large and five arms are short and tapering
  • very harmful to pearl industry as it feeds on pearl oyster
• Astropecten:

  • Central disc is large and pentagonal, while arms are short and tapering
  • occurs no brachiolaria larva