Jo Wolfe, PhD: #InsertAnInvert2024 NEW VELVET WORM SPECIES!!! Oroperipatus tiputini is from Ecuador and has unique morphology! 😍🧪

#InsertAnInvert2024 NEW VELVET WORM SPECIES!!! Oroperipatus tiputini is from Ecuador and has unique morphology! 😍🧪

Cute but deadly: a new velvet worm species from Ecuadorblog.pensoft.net The so-called "living fossil" shoots a sticky substance from a pair of glands to trap its prey.

Calling them a living fossil, however, is very inaccurate. Almost all fossil representatives are marine, but modern species are only terrestrial

@minouette.bsky.social , another one for your art?

Oh wow! Look at that thing. Amazing.

I’d love to be ensconced in velvet worms.

Cool!

When they got the form to pick their phylum, they must have marked both mollusk and arthropod and this is what the character generator spit out

It used to be (30+ years ago) thought that they were a link between arthropods and annelid worms, but that has been refuted by molecular data

Huh. I guess they do all have segmented bodies.

Indeed the name of that (refuted) group was Articulata! But now we know there is Ecdysozoa, united by moulting (ecdysis). Arthropods, velvet worms, tardigrades, nematodes, and some weird wormy guys

Did I dream this or did I hear that tardigrades lost their body segments and are effectively just the head segement of what their bodies used to be?

You are correct!

The Compact Body Plan of Tardigrades Evolved by the Loss of a Large Body Regionwww.sciencedirect.com The superphylum Panarthropoda (Arthropoda, Onychophora, and Tardigrada) exhibits a remarkable diversity of segment morphologies, enabling these animal…

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