Characteristics of Phylum Porifera Classifications

Let’s learn about phylum porifera now in details here and their important characteristics and classifications and everything to know about Phylum Porifera or sponges.

Sponges the members of the phylum porifera and are the simplest multi-cellular animals and oldest multi-celled animals they are aquatic and sessile and few of important characteristics are: acoelomates, digestion in intacellular and they are hermaphrodite but fertilisation is cross. Lets see all characteristics of phylu porifera in detail.

General Characteristic of Phylum Porifera

Here let’s see some of the general characteristic of Phylum Porifera. The Members of porifera are commonly called as Sponges, the sponges are considered to be the primitive multi-cellular organisms having a cellular level of organization and here cellular level of organization mean that each cell performs its specified vital functions that the cell is responsible for performing the vital activities for the survival of the sponges.

The sponges or the members of porifera have a water transport or a canal system which means water enters through minute pores and these minute pores are called as Ostia and also entering in the central cavity of the sponges which is called as Spongocoel the central cavity and water which comes out from or expelled is called as Osculum.

This kind of water transport or canal system generally is helpful in respiratory exchanges and removal of the waste and gathering of the food materials. These are the vital functions which are performed by the water transport or the canal system present in the body of porifera or Sponges.

In the members of porifera generally the digestion is intracellular. The body of of the sponges or porifera is generally made of a skeleton made of Sponging fibres or spicules and these are hermaphrodite organisms and hermaphrodite organism means having both the sexes in the same body or we can say the eggs and sperms are produced by the identical individuals.

These sponges generally asexually they reproduce by the process of fragmentation in which the body of the sponges divides in to two or three spur fragments and then each fragment will develop to form a new sponge.

Similarly the sexual reproduction of takes place by the formation of gametes.

Fertilisation is internal but the development is indirect and the reason why it is indirect is because it has a larval stage in the development is morphologically different from that of the adult.

Also Read:

1) Phylum Platyhelminthes: Characteristics, Digestion, Ferritization

2) Phylum Protozoa: Classification, Types, Structure and Features

3) Phylum Chordata Characteristics and Classification

4) Different Types of Phylum and Characteristics, Classes

5) Phylum Arthropoda: Characteristic, Classes and Overview:

Phylum Porifera are Asymmetrical Organism?

The body of the sponges is asymmetrical having any symmetry that’s why they are called as asymmetrical and they have irregular body shapes, therefore they are called as asymmetrical organisms.

Various examples of Sponges

There are various example of sponges or phylym porifera like Sycon, Spongilla, Euspongia are examples of members of phylym porifera.

What does Porifera Mean?

Porifera – the sponges are sessile (don’t move), have no true tissue, suspension feeders. Porifera sponges comes in various variety of shape and sizes.

What is the common Name of Porifera?

The common name of porifera as discussed above is Sponges. Phylym porifera is derived from greek words Poros – pure and ferre and to bear

Do porifera have Tissues?

Sponges lack true tissues and organs as the poriferas are multicellular and the cells that make up of a sponge are not organized into tissues that’s why sponges lack true tissues and they have no body symmetry and porifera have specialized cells which perform definite functions.

Where do you find Porifera?

Porifera are found deep water sea and there are more than 5000 species known under deep water sea but some sponges live in all types of regions and they are able to succeed and thrive in most environments but few of them live in freshwater attached to the surface anywhere in deep.

What is the biological class of Porifera?

There are 3 main biological classes of phylum porifera they are:

  • Calcareous sponge
  • Demosponge
  • Hexactinellida

How Many Species Porifera Have?

There are about 5000 to 10000 species of Porifera and among them only around 150 species live in fresh water and few of them reside or dwell in salt water.

Swapna Reddy
Swapna Reddyhttps://www.asavvyweb.com/
Swapna Reddy is a Tech Content Writer and has a Degree of MTech Completed in 2011 and has an experience of more than 8 years as tech content writer and she writes about methods and solutions to fixing daily experiencing issues and helps users to resolve issues with All Smart tv'z, Computers, iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac and Optimizing methods and other tech related articles with real time experiences and fixes.

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