Online Lecture 7

Phylum Cnidaria
Characteristic features;
It takes its name from cells called cnidocytes, which contain the stinging
organelles (nematocysts) characteristic of the phylum.
-more than 9000 species .
-They are an ancient group with the longest fossil history of any metazoan,
reaching back more than 700 million years.
-They have no head end. The mouth (which serves also as the anus) is the
single opening of the only internal cavity, called the ‘coelenteron’, which is
an enclosed part of the water in which the animal lives. Another name for
the phylum, Coelenterata
-The mouth is usually surrounded by tentacles where the stinging cells are
concentrated.
-They have Radial symmetry
- Cnidaria are ‘diploblastic’.There are only two cell layers, the ectoderm
(also called the epidermis) and the endoderm (also called the
gastrodermis). They are separated by a jelly-like ‘mesoglea’, which
contains some cells and connective tissue fibres but is not itself a cell layer
-They are widespread in marine habitats, and there are a few in fresh
water.
-Although they are mostly sessile or fairly slow moving or slow swimming,
Examples: branching, plantlike hydroids; flowerlike sea anemones;
jellyfishes; and those architects of the ocean floor, horny corals (sea whips,
sea fans, and others), and stony corals
Movement and locomotion
Cnidarians can move parts of their bodies (mainly the tentacles) and
change the body shape. Locomotion occurs in medusae and also in a few
polyps. Movement by muscle contraction requires a skeleton, because
muscles must have some restraint to pull against in order to have any
effect, and after contracting they must be re-extended, but the skeleton
need not be hard. Like other soft-bodied animals, Cnidaria use the
incompressibility of water to serve as a hydrostatic skeleton. Hard
structures exist in Cnidaria, such as the calcareous skeletons of corals, but
they never play any part in muscle contraction.
Anemones and jellyfish provide examples of cnidarian movement: certainly
anemones frequently contract and alter their shape in the absence of any
apparent change in conditions. A few anemones may shuffle, b urrow
or swim, but most are sedentary. They contract their muscles against the
water-filled coelenteron, expelling water through the mouth: at rest the
invaginated sleeve or ‘pharynx’ acts as a valve which keeps water from
escaping. Refilling the coelenteron is slow; it depends on ciliated grooves
or ‘siphonoglyphs’ running down from one or two points on the pharynx
circumference. (This, incidentally, is an example of functional needs
interrupting radial symmetry.)
Form and Function
Dimorphism and Polymorphism
in Cnidarians
One of the most interesting aspects of this phylum is the dimorphism and
often polymorphism displayed by many of its members. All cnidarian forms
fit into one of two morphological types (dimorphism):
Polyp, or hydroid form, which is adapted to a sedentary or sessile life,
Medusa, or jellyfish form, which is adapted for a floating or free-swimming
Most polyps have tubular bodies with a mouth at one end surrounded by
tentacles. The aboral end is usually attached to a substratum by a pedal
disc. Polyps may live singly or in colonies. Colonies of some species
include morphologically differing individuals (polymorphism), each
specialized for a certain function, such as feeding, reproduction, or
defense.
Nematocysts: Stinging Organelles
One of the most characteristic structures in the entire cnidarian group is the
stinging organelle called a nematocyst. The nematocyst is a tiny capsule
composed of material similar to chitin and containing a coiled tubular
thread” or filament, which is a continuation of the narrowed end of the
capsule. This end of the capsule is covered by a little lid, or operculum.
The operculum opens, and the rapidly increasing hydrostatic pressure
within the capsule forces the thread out with great force, the thread turning
inside out as it goes. At the everting end of the thread, the barbs flick to the
outside like tiny switchblades. This minute but awesome weapon then
injects poison when it penetrates prey.
Feeding and Digestion
Cnidarians prey on a variety of organisms of appropriate size; larger
species are usually capable of killing and eating larger prey. Normally prey
organisms are drawn into the gastrovascular cavity into which gland cells
discharge enzymes. Digestion is started in the gastrovascular cavity
(extracellular digestion), but nutritive-muscular cells phagocytize many
food particles for intracellular digestion. Amoeboid cells may carry
undigested particles to the gastrovascular cavity, where they are eventually
expelled with other indigestible matter.
Reproduction
Most cnidarians are dioecious, and many shed their gametes directly into
the water. Zygotes may be retained by the female and brooded for some
period. Gonads are epidermal in hydrozoans and gastrodermal in the other
groups. The embryo characteristically develops into a free-swimming
planula larva
Cnidarians are capable of asexual reproduction, usually by budding, but
sea anemones commonly practice a peculiar form of fission known as
pedal laceration
Life history
Anthozoa have no medusa in the life cycle. The polyps release the
gametes, which fuse to form a zygote and this develops into a ciliated
swimming ‘planula’ larva, very simple in structure, which later settles and
grows into the adult polyp. Some hydrozoans are similar (e.g. the
freshwater Hydra) but characteristically the polyp colony, living in the harsh
conditions of the intertidal region, buds off medusae which produce
gametes and the zygote develops into a planula which grows into a new
polyp colony (Figure). This is not the ‘alternation of generations’ familiar in
plants, since polyp and medusa have chromosomes identical in number
and kind. Dispersal is of the utmost importance to a sessile animal, and the
motile medusa provides a more robust agent of dispersal than the fragile
planula larva.

Colony formation is the commonest result of the remarkable budding

power of many polyps, allowing increase in size and the possibility of
division of labour. Size increase is a great advantage in that a larger area
can be swept for food. While individual medusae can enlarge by expanding
the inanimate mesoglea (the largest jellyfish known are up to about two
thirds of a metre in diameter) individual polyps cannot get very big without
supporting structures and increased digestive area; anthozoans with
mesenteries dividing the coelenteron can become larger than hydrozoan
polyps.
In a colony, however, many small hydrozoan polyps can sweep as much
water as a single anemone, and food is shared as the units remain in
contact through a common coelenteron.
The commonest example of division of labour is that between the feeding
and reproductive individuals in a hydrozoan colony. There may be further
differentiation, for example between feeding and stinging individuals in the
Colony. Polymorphism is carried much further in Hydractinia, a colonial
hydroid attached to the shell of a gastropod mollusk which is inhabited by a
hermit crab.
planula larva settles on the shell and develops into a primary polyp, which
buds into a mat of branching stolons (tubes of tissue with a coelenteron
that connects polyps). These stolons bud off four kinds of polyps, all with
batteries of nematocysts: first the feeding polyps, the only kind to have a
mouth surrounded by tentacles; then the reproductive polyps, which bud off
medusae that are not set free but release eggs or sperm into the sea;
polyps with ‘fingers’ are formed only at the mouth of the mollusc’s shell,
where they extract eggs; development of the fourth type of polyp, with a
single long tentacle for defence, is stimulated by the presence of foreign
organisms.