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Parazoa

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Parazoa (Parazoa, gr. Παρα-, para, "next to", and ζωα, zoa, "animals") is an obsolete subkingdom that is located at the base of the phylogenetic tree of the animal kingdom in opposition to the subkingdom Eumetazoa; they group together the most primitive forms, characterized by not having proper tissues or where, in any case, these tissues are only partially differentiated. It generally includes a single phylum, Porifera, which lack muscles, nerves and internal organs, which in many cases resembles a cell colony rather than a multicellular organism itself. All other animals are eumetazoans and

Wikidata facts

Instance of
taxon
Parent taxon
Metazoa
Image
Sponge.JPG
Show 6 more facts
taxon name
Parazoa
taxon rank
subkingdom
Commons category
Animalia
topic's main category
Category:Parazoa
start time
580000000-
temporal range start
Ediacaran
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Encyclopedic overview

5 sections
Contents
  • Porifera and Archaeocyatha
  • Porifera and Placozoa
  • Phylogeny
  • References
  • External links

Parazoa (Parazoa, gr. Παρα-, para, "next to", and ζωα, zoa, "animals") is an obsolete subkingdom that is located at the base of the phylogenetic tree of the animal kingdom in opposition to the subkingdom Eumetazoa; they group together the most primitive forms, characterized by not having proper tissues or where, in any case, these tissues are only partially differentiated. It generally includes a single phylum, Porifera, which lack muscles, nerves and internal organs, which in many cases resembles a cell colony rather than a multicellular organism itself. All other animals are eumetazoans and agnotozoans (Agnotozoans are possibly paraphyletic or even nonexistent in studies), which do have differentiated tissues.

==Porifera and Archaeocyatha== Porifera and Archaeocyatha show similarities such as benthic and sessile habitat and the presence of pores, with differences such as the presence of internal walls and septa in Archaeocyatha. They have been considered separate phyla, however, the consensus is growing that Archaeocyatha was in fact a type of sponge that can be classified into Porifera.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Parazoa” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.