Everything about Siboglinidae totally explained
Siboglinidae, also known as the
beard worms, is a
family of
polychaete annelid worms whose members made up the former
phyla Pogonophora (the
giant tube worms) and
Vestimentifera. They are composed of about 100 species of vermiform creatures and live in thin tubes buried in sediments at ocean depths from 100 to 10,000
m. They can also be found in association with
methane seeps, with sunken plant material or
whale carcasses.
Anatomy
Most are less than 1
mm in diameter but 10 to 75
cm in length. They have a complex
closed circulatory system and a well developed
nervous system. Their body is divided into four regions; the cephalic lobe, forepart, trunk, and
opisthosoma. The anterior is called the cephalic lobe, which bears from 1 to over 200 thin branchial
tentacles, which bears tiny side branches known as pinnules. Posterior to the cephalic lobe is the short forepart, and then the elongate trunk, which bears various annuli, papillae, and ciliary tracts. Posterior to the trunk is the short metamerically segmented opisthosoma, that contains serially arranged coelomic spaces separated by septa and bears external paired
chaetae.
Vestimentiferans
Like other tube worms, vestimentiferans are marine and .
Riftia pachyptila, a vestimentiferan, is known only from the
hydrothermal vent systems. The vestimentiferans possess an anterior first body part called the obturaculum. Their main trunk of the body bears winglike extensions, the vestimentum, from which their name is derived. Also, unlike other siboglinids that never have a
digestive tract, they've one that they completely lose during
metamorphosis. They feed primarily on
symbiotic hydrogen sulfide- or methane-oxidizing
bacteria living in an internal organ, the trophosome.
The first specimen was dredged from the waters of what is now
Indonesia in
1900. These specimens were given to French zoologist
Maurice Caullery, who studied them for nearly 50 years.
Genera in the family Siboglinidae
Further Information
Get more info on 'Siboglinidae'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://siboglinidae.totallyexplained.com">Siboglinidae Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
