Phylactolaemata
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Phylactolaemata
(fə′lak·tō′lē·məd·ə)
(invertebrate zoology) A class of fresh-water ectoproct bryozoans; individuals have lophophores which are U-shaped in basal outline, and relatively short, wide zooecia.
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Phylactolaemata
McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Encyclopedia:
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Phylactolaemata
A class of ectoproct bryozoans. Phylactolaemates have lophophores which usually are markedly U-shaped (or rarely nearly circular but still kidney-shaped) in basal outline, and relatively short, wide zooecia; these animals dwell only in fresh waters. See also Bryozoa; Lophophore.
Phylactolaemate colonies are either encrusting threadlike networks of relatively isolated zooecia with solid chitinous uncalcified walls, or small to large masses of gelatinous material in which the individual zooids are embedded side-by-side without definite separating zooecial walls. Stolons are not present.
Only a few (about 50) phylactolaemate species exist, all classified in a single order, the Plumatellida (or Plumatellina). Exclusively fresh-water, the phylactolaemates may have evolved relatively recently from ctenostomes, although some workers have suggested that phylactolaemates might be very primitive ectoprocts surviving as evolutionary relics. See also Ctenostomata.
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Mentioned in
Plumatellina
(invertebrate zoology)
statoblast
(invertebrate zoology)
Ectoprocta
(in zoology)
Statoblasts
(bryozoa)
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