Talk:Echinoderm

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What is a machaerid? I find no mention of them anywhere else on the web. -phma

Search under machaeridia. This is one of those cases where using the full Latin version of the name might be better...

Contents 1 Thanks! 2 Classes 3 What they eat 4 Life Expectancy 5 Expansion request 6 Classification 7 Article expansion 8 image

[edit] Thanks!

This is a very useful page. Thanks for creating it

in this:

They have a simple radial nervous system that consists of a modified nerve net (interconnected neurons with no central organs); nerve rings with radiating nerves around the mouth extending into each arm; the branches of these nerves coordinate the movements of the animal. Echinoderms have a brain, although it is very small.

i'm not a biologist, but doesn't a brain count as a central nervous system organ?

No, it doesn't, it is a control organ.

The brain is in fact a part of the central nervous system, though it's odd to hear it refereed to as a "nervous system organ"

[edit] Classes

The page on sea daisies says they are now (as of 2005) considered to belong in the class Asteroidea. Shouldn't the reference to it as a seperate class be removed? -Echnin 03:05, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

It would be interesting and useful to discuss the classification of echinoderms in light of the debate about how closely related Asteroidea and Ophiuroidea, mentioned here http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Echinodermata.html and here http://tolweb.org/Echinodermata

[edit] What they eat

What exactly do they eat?

Sea-stars are largely carnivorous, eating a lot of bivalves. Sea urchins are generally herbiverous, feeding on kelp forests. Sea lilies are suspension feeders, sifting through water currents for microorganisms. Sea cucumbers generally eat soil and sift through it for detritous and miicrorganisms, and I believe sand dollars might do the same, but I'm not sure. Finally, I believe the diet of brittle-stars to be more varied, ranging from detritus to filter-feeding to active predation, although, again, I'm not positive on that. I'll try and do some better research and include it in the article. Hope this helps for the time-being. Cerealkiller13 19:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Life Expectancy

How long do echinoderms live for? FREAK

Wouldn't this question be easier answered in the articles for specific species of echinoderms, since the amongst the many species, the life-span range could be huge? IanUK 13:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion request

The evolutionary history and origin of Echinoderms surely merits some consideration in this article. Verisimilus T 10:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Classification

Could the classification list be merged into the infobox? Verisimilus T 10:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It needs to be redone, entirely. Eleutherozoa is missing, and that's perhaps the only taxon above the classes whose existence and content is not disputed... I have used the Eleutherozoa page to make a short blurb about the 2 hypotehses. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 06:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The link to "Asteroids" must be corrected to "Asteroidea" or else the readers continue to end up in space. slj 12.05.08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sljuul (talk • contribs) 22:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article expansion

Hi,

I've significantly expanded this article by adding a translation of the German featured article. I've not had time to copyedit it so the writing is in places rough. However the additional information has enhanced the article greatly. The Evolution section still needs a lot of work though! And I've not had time to migrate images in from the German site. Still - an improvement of sorts....

Verisimilus T 19:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] image

This image is now available in Wiki-Commons shoud wish to include it in this entry. It was painted by the very famous natural history and wildlife artist Karen Carr. [1] --Random Replicator 23:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)