Wikipedia

chinoderm is the common name given to any member of the Phylum

Echinodermata (from Ancient Greek, , echinos "hedgehog" and ,
derma "skin")[2] of marine animals. The adults are recognizable by their (usually
five-point) radial symmetry, and include such well-known animals as starfish, sea
urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the sea lilies or "stone lilies".
[3]
Echinoderms are found at every ocean depth, from the intertidal zone to the
abyssal zone. The phylum contains about 7000 living species,[4] making it the
second-largest grouping of deuterostomes (a superphylum), after the chordates
(which include the vertebrates, such as birds, fishes, mammals, and reptiles).
Echinoderms are also the largest phylum that has no freshwater or terrestrial
(land-based) representatives.
Aside from the hard-to-classify Arkarua (a Precambrian animal with echinodermlike pentamerous radial symmetry), the first definitive members of the phylum
appeared near the start of the Cambrian.
The echinoderms are important both biologically and geologically. Biologically,
there are few other groupings so abundant in the biotic desert of the deep sea, as
well as shallower oceans. The more notably distinct trait, which most echinoderms
have, is their remarkable powers of regeneration of tissue, organs, limbs, and of
asexual reproduction, and in some cases, complete regeneration from a single
limb. Geologically, the value of echinoderms is in their ossified skeletons, which
are major contributors to many limestone formations, and can provide valuable
clues as to the geological environment. They were the most used species in
regenerative research in the 19th and 20th centuries. Further, it is held by some
scientists that the radiation of echinoderms was responsible for the Mesozoic
Marine Revolution.

axonomy and evolution

See also: List of echinodermata orders
Along with the chordates and hemichordates, echinoderms are deuterostomes, one
of the two major divisions of the bilaterians, the other being the protostomes.
During the early development of the embryo, in deuterostomes the blastopore (the
first opening to form) becomes the anus whereas in the protostomes, it becomes
the mouth. In deuterostomes, the mouth develops at a later stage, at the opposite
end of the blastula from the blastopore, and a gut forms connecting the two.[5] The
larvae of echinoderms have bilateral symmetry but this is lost during
metamorphosis when their bodies are reorganised and develop the characteristic

radial symmetry of the echinoderm, typically pentamerism.[6] The characteristics

of adult echinoderms are the possession of a water vascular system with external
tube feet and a calcareous endoskeleton consisting of ossicles connected by a
mesh of collagen fibres.[7]

The Ordovician cystoid Echinosphaerites from northeastern Estonia

Fossil crinoid crowns

There are a total of about 7,000 extant species of echinoderm as well as about
13,000 extinct species. They are found in habitats ranging from shallow intertidal
areas to abyssal depths. Two main subdivisions are traditionally recognised: the
more familiar motile Eleutherozoa, which encompasses the Asteroidea (starfish,
1,745 recent species), Ophiuroidea (brittle stars, 2,300 species), Echinoidea (sea
urchins and sand dollars, 900 species) and Holothuroidea (sea cucumbers, 1,430
species); and the Pelmatozoa, some of which are sessile while others move
around. These consist of the Crinoidea (feather stars and sea lilies, 580 species)
and the extinct blastoids and Paracrinoids.[8] A fifth class of Eleutherozoa
consisting of just three species, the Concentricycloidea (sea daisies), were recently
merged into the Asteroidea.[9] The fossil record includes a large number of other
classes which do not appear to fall into any extant crown group.

All echinoderms are marine and nearly all are benthic.[10] The oldest known
echinoderm fossil may be Arkarua from the Precambrian of Australia. It is a disclike fossil with radial ridges on the rim and a five-pointed central depression
marked with radial lines. However, no stereom or internal structure showing a
water vascular system is present and the identification is inconclusive.[11]
The first universally accepted echinoderms appear in the Lower Cambrian period,
asterozoans appeared in the Ordovician and the crinoids were a dominant group in
the Paleozoic.[10] Echinoderms left behind an extensive fossil record.[10] It is
hypothesised that the ancestor of all echinoderms was a simple, motile, bilaterally
symmetrical animal with a mouth, gut and anus. This ancestral stock adopted an
attached mode of life and suspension feeding, and developed radial symmetry as
this was more advantageous for such an existence. The larvae of all echinoderms
are even now bilaterally symmetrical and all develop radial symmetry at
metamorphosis. The starfish and crinoids still attach themselves to the seabed
while changing to their adult form.[12]
The first echinoderms later gave rise to free-moving groups. The evolution of
endoskeletal plates with stereom structure and of external ciliary grooves for
feeding were early echinoderm developments.[13] The Paleozoic echinoderms were
globular, attached to the substrate and were orientated with their oral surfaces
upwards. The fossil echinoderms had ambulacral grooves extending down the side
of the body, fringed on either side by brachioles, structures very similar to the
pinnules of a modern crinoid. It seems probable that the mouth-upward orientation
is the primitive state and that at some stage, all the classes of echinoderms except
the crinoids reversed this to become mouth-downward. Before this happened, the
podia probably had a feeding function as they do in the crinoids today. Their
locomotor function came later, after the re-orientation of the mouth when the
podia were in contact with the substrate for the first time.[14]
Echinoderms exhibit secondary radial symmetry in portions of their body at some
stage of life. This, however, is an adaptation to their sessile existence. They
developed from other members of the Bilateria and exhibit bilateral symmetry in
their larval stage. Many crinoids and some seastars exhibit symmetry in multiples
of the basic five, with starfish such as Labidiaster annulatus known to possess up
to fifty arms, and the sea-lily Comaster schlegelii having two hundred.[15]