PHYLUM ECHINODERMATA

• The echinoderms (Cambrian – Recent)

• They are bottom living marine animals
generally only a few inches in size.
• At the present day, the majority of
echinoderms are free – living, but many fossil
forms were fixed and it is commonly supposed
that the phylum is descended from sedentary
ancestors.
• Echinoderms of all kinds (e.g. starfish and sea
– urchins) are characterized
 Characteristics
• Echinoderms of all kinds (e.g. starfish and sea –
urchins) are characterized by:
• Internal mesodermal skeletons of porous calcite plates
(ossicles) which are normally fitted together into a rigid
or flexible test, and which are normally spiny and
covered outside and in by a thin protoplasmic skin.
• Each ossicle is made of a single calcite crystal and
shows the typical calcite cleavage when broken;
echinoderm-plates are therefore very easily
recognized in rocks.
• Another important feature of echinoderms is the
water- vascular system: a complex internal apparatus
of tubes and bladders containing fluid. This has
extensions which emerge through the skeleton to the
outside as the tube –feet or podia. Tube-feet have
various functions, especially locomotion, respiration
and feeding.
• The main part of the body is generally rounded, but
in several groups it bears a ring of projecting arms,
usually five in number. Fixed forms are often raised
on a flexible stalk of many ossicles. Although there
is no head, it is generally possible to distinguish an
oral surface containing the mouth and an opposite
aboral surface. In fixed forms the oral surface faces
upwards, in free forms it faces downwards.
• Normally the skeletons have a five – rayed or
pentameral symmetry, superimposed on a
fundamental bilateral symmetry.
• Echinoderms are very abundant in the fossil
record because of their calcitic skeleton, and
often their remains have greatly contributed
to carbonate sediments.
• Thus crinoidal limestones, composed largely
of the stem fragments of sea – lilies and are
very common in some rocks, notably the
Carboniferous. In such rocks the porous plates
have often been impregnanted with
diagenetic calcium carbonate. Echinoderms
are stenohaline, and their remains are only
found in sediments of fully marine origin.
CLASSIFICATION OF ECHINODERMATA
• The Echinodermata can be classified into two
subphyla, containing altogether seven classes:
Subphylum pelmatozoa and Subphylum
Eleutherozoa (Echinozoa)
(1) Subphylum pelmatozoa:
• Fixed forms generally mounted on a stalk with the
oral surface uppermost.
• The body or theca often has projecting arms.
• Ambulacral food-grooves extend over the theca
and along the arms.
 Classes under pelmatozoa:
(a)Cystoidea (Cambrian – Carboniferous)
• Primitive stalked echinoderms with very imperfect radial symmetry
• The ossicles of the theca are irregularly arranged and the number of
arms varies from one to five.
(b) Crinoidea (Cambrian – Recent)
• Stalked echinoderms with five simple or branching arms.
• Echinoderms with a globular calyx with mouth central to the upper
surface, surrounded by a series of arms; mostly attached to the
substrate through a stem.

(c)Blastoidea (Silurian – Permian)

• Small stalked echinoderms without arms or Echinoderms with a
globular calyx with small arms (brachioles) mounted on specialised
ambulacral areas; mostly attached to the substrate through a stem.
• (d) Edrioasteroidea (Ordovician –
Carboniferous)
• Echinoderms with food grooves but generally
no stalk.

(2)Subphylum Eleutherozoa (Echinozoa)

• Free living forms with the oral surface facing
downwards and the anus generally aboral.
• Tube feet are generally well developed and
there are no food grooves.
 Classes under subphylum Eleutherozoa
(a) Stelleroidea (Asteroidea) (Ordovician – Recent)
• Star-shaped echinoderms ,'lith five arms bearing ambulacral grooves,
with the mouth on the lower surface.
Forms with five arms e.g. the starfish
(b)Holothuroidea (Cambrian – Recent)
• Echinoderms with a cylindrical body with skeleton reduced to widely
separated plates
(sclerites)
• Cylindrical forms with the mouth anterior e.g. sea – cucumbers.
• The ossicles are not united into a solid test but are isolated in the skin.
(c) Echinoidea (Ordovician – Recent)
• Echinoderms with globular to flattened tests without arms or stalks, and
having
numerous plates displaying pentameral symmetry, some with
superimposed bilateral symmetry.
Globular or heart shaped forms e.g. the sea – urchins and heart - urchins.
 Class Crinoidea (Cambrian – Recent)
• The crinoidea is the most important division of the
Pelmatozoa and is the only division represented by
living forms.
• The present day crinoids (sea lilies) live in groves, in
clear and moderately deep water.
• The majority are raised on stalks which may be tens
of meters long.
• In the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic, crinoids were
very numerous and their loose stem ossicles
occasionally piled up to form Crinoidal limestone.
• Crinoids have three main parts – the stem, the
theca, and the arms (fig. 1)
• The stem is usually made of a line of single
ossicles, each pierced by a central hole
containing a strand of living tissue.
• Root-like branches near the base may anchor the
animal to the sea – bottom,
• but in some crinoids the stem is tapering, coiled
or even absent; these forms are not permanently
fixed, but can attach themselves temporarily by
twining the stem around other objects or by
clinging with claw-like projections or cirri.
• The theca consists of a cup of regularly
arranged plates rising from the stem and
bearing the arms at its upper margin, and a
cover or tegmen closing in the space above
the level of the arms. The actual arrangement
of the plates differs from one group to
another. The cup always contains two circlets
of ossicles, five being the normal number in
each circle.
• - The cover or tegmen which completes
the theca is in modern crinoids a flexible
membrane containing many small plates.
• In some Paleozoic genera the tegmen was a
firm dome covering in the mouth, and the
bases of the food – grooves.
• The anus opens on the tegmen and its
position may be marked by a special plate or
tube.
• The flexible arms are normally five in number
and may remain unbranched (e.g.
Cupressocrinus) or may bifurcate repeatedly;
they are often fringed with small pinnules.
 CLASS: ECHINOIDEA,
Morphology & life habit:
• Test globular, 10cm in diameter, slightly flattened
at the poles.
• In life, test is covered with short spines (1-2cm):
• If these are removed the plating structure is visible.
• On the upper (aboral or adapical) surface there is a
central apical disc: a double ring of plates
surrounding a central hole or periproct, which
contains the anus (fig. 2)
• The apical disc is formed of two types of
plates: the larger genital plates and the
smaller ocular plates. Each is perforated by a
pore.
• The genital pores are the outlets of the
gonads, and the ocular pores are part of the
water-vascular system.
• One genital plate (the madreporite) is the
larger than the others. It has numerous tiny
perforations which lead into the water–
vascular system below
• The test is divided into ten radial segments
extending from the apical disc to the peristome
which surrounds the mouth on the lower (adoral)
surface.
• The five narrower segments are the ambulacra
(ambs) which connects with the ocular plates,
whereas the broader interambulacra (interambs)
terminate against the genital plates.
• Both ambulacra and interambulacra consist of
double columns of elongated plates which meet
along a central suture in a zigzag pattern (per-
radial suture).
• The interambulacral plates are large and
tubercular, without perforations, but the
ambulacra plates each have three sets of
paired pores near the outer edge of the plate.
• These pore pairs are the sites where the tube
– feet emerge through the test from the
internal part of the water vascular system.
• The ambulacra and interabulacra are widest at
the ambitus, which is the edge of the
specimen when seen from above or below.
• The peristome is a large adoral area, covered
in life by a flexible plated membrane, which
contains the mouth centrally. In fossil
specimens however, the membrane has
normally gone, leaving a large circular or
pentagonal cavity (fig. 3)
• Five pairs of gill notches are found where the
interambulacra abut the edge of the
peristome and from these; project feathery
bunches of gills which provide surfaces for
respiratory exchange additional to those of
the tube feet.
 Regular And Irregular echinoid
• Echinus is a regular echinoid: one in which the
periproct opens in the center of the apical disc.
• Such regular echinoids are common today and in the
fossil record and they live either on the sea floor or
like stronglylocentrotus, in cavities in rocks which
they may have excavated themselves.
• Regular echinoids are normally illustrated according
to a conventional orientation
• The madreporite is always shown at the right
anterior and with its dependent interambulacrum is
numbered 2
• The numbering proceeds anticlockwise (as seen
from the adapical pole) so that genital 5 is always
posterior. Roman numerals designate the oculars
and ambulacra.
• The same system is used in numbering the plates of
irregular echinoids: those with a dominant bilateral
symmetry and the periproct are no longer placed in
the center of the apical system.
• The periproct migrates backward into one of the
interambulacral spaces and may reach a position at
or near the circumference of the test.
• The mouth may remain central or may migrate forward in
the ambulacrum diametrically opposite the periproct.
 Echinoid test modifications
• The shape of the test is modified in various
ways. The oral (adoral) surface is generally
flattened, to rest smoothly on the sea-bed as
in Conulus; the entire test may be flattened,
so that the animal is unlikely to be rolled over
(e.g. Clypeus) or in burrowing echinoids, it
may become heart-shaped and develop a
deep groove in the position of the anterior
ambulacrum (e.g. Micraster, Echinocardium).