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KINGDOM ANIMALIA Phylum Nematoda. Phylum Nematoda. Bilaterally symmetrical Surrounded by a strong, flexible cuticle. “Pseudocoelomate” body plan: fluid-filled cavity contains an intestine and oviducts or testes. Simple nervous system consisting of dorsal and ventral nerve cords.
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Phylum Nematoda • Bilaterally symmetrical • Surrounded by a strong, flexible cuticle. • “Pseudocoelomate” body plan: fluid-filled cavity contains an intestine and oviducts or testes. • Simple nervous system consisting of dorsal and ventral nerve cords. • Movement by contraction of longitudinal muscles against pressurized fluid. • Hydrostatic skeleton. • Some have specialized cells that excrete nitrogenous wastes; in others, canals or canals plus these specialized cells are present. • No cilia or flagellae.
Reproduction • Most nematodes are either male or female, not hermaphroditic. • Fertilization takes place when males use special copulatory spines to open the females' reproductive tracts and inject sperm into them. • The sperm are unique in that they lack flagellae and move by pseudopodia, like amoebas.
Nematode Ubiquity • Nematodes are unbelievably abundant. • One study reported around 90,000 individual nematodes in a single rotting apple. • Up to 236 species have been found living in a few cubic centimeters of mud. • The number of described species is around 12,000, but the actual number of species may be closer to 500,000.
Ecological Role • Many nematodes are free living and play critical ecological roles as decomposers and predators on microorganisms. • Some species are generalists, occurring across wide areas and in many habitats. • Others are much more specialized. • One species is known only from felt coasters placed under beer mugs in a few towns in Germany.
Parasitic Roundworms • Some nematodes affect humans directly or indirectly through their domestic animals. • Hookworms, live in small intestine of host • Trichina, the worms that cause trichinosis • Pinworms, transmitted from human to human by eggs floating in household dust • Filarial worms, primarily tropical parasites that cause diseases such as filariasis (elephantiasis) by blocking lymphatic vessels