BIOL 112 Lecture 25

From Notes
Jump to navigation Jump to search

« previous | Monday, October 29, 2012 | next »


Animals

Muscles

  • Muscle is made of bundles of muscle fibers
  • Each fiber is made from several cells containing myofibril
  • Myofibril is segmented into sarcomere units made of actin and myosin filaments

Nervous System

Animal taxa differ in circuit formations, targets (muscle, etc), and patterns of neurons arrangements:

  • cnidarians: neural net
  • platyhelminthes: dual nerve cords and nerve cells clumped in ganglia
  • arthropods: multiple segmental ganglia
  • mollusc: cephalic brain
  • chordate: cephalic brain, single spinal cord

Coelom

Diffusion is sufficient for tissue only a few cells thick. As tissues get thicker, diffusion becomes less efficient. This limits organism size.

Animals overcame this problem with a fluid-filled cavity called a coelom.

acoelomates
platyhelminthes (flatworms)
no body cavity
pseudocoelomates
nematoda (roundworms)
coelom partially lined in with mesoderm
fluid called pseudocoelomic fluid
coelomate
annelida
true coelom with mesoderm on both faces
fluid called coelomic fluid

Origins of Animals

Colonial flagellated protist ancestor: choanoflagellates

colony of identical cells → functional specialization of cells → interdependence of cells → multicellular animal

Some extant animals have choanoflagellate-like cells:

  • sponges
  • flatworms
  • cnidaria

Cambrian explosion (~550 mya) was the introduction of most animal phyla, including first vertebrates