Although we don’t usually hunt for invertebrates during seining trips, they turn up in the net or under foot regularly. We also find invertebrates on Carefree Learner trips. Many dwell in the loose algae that is brought up in the otter trawl.
“Invertebrates” are animals without backbones that
constitute most of the animal kingdom. The animal kingdom is divided into phyla
(about thirty-four, more or less) and only one contains
vertebrates (the Chordates). Each
phylum consists of critters with a significantly different body plan. Each phylum is, in turn, subdivided into classes,
classes into orders, orders into families, families into genera and genera
(sing. Genus) into species. The
scientific name of a critter consists of its Genus (always capitalized) and
species (never capitalized) name. In
large phyla, super-and sub- classifications may used to expand the hierarchical
“tree”.
In
recent years, single-celled creatures have been placed in their own kingdom, the
Monera. In older texts (and a
few newer ones as well), you will still find the phylum Protozoa among the
animals. (Remember, its people
doing the classifying and no matter how one arranges the critters, there is
always something that doesn’t quite fit.
The upshot of this is that some phyla seem to undergo continual redoing).
To find out more about invertebrates, try Buchsbaum et al, 1987, Animals
Without Backbones, University of Chicago Press.
We have
done our best to correctly identify what we have captured but we can make
mistakes. If you think we have
erred, send us an e-mail (davebulloch@verizon.net
)
along with your reasoning and references (critter, not personal). We
have relied on two sources: Kaplan
E. 1988 A Field Guide to
Southeastern and Caribbean Seashores, Houghton-Mifflin, Boston and Ruppert E.
and R.Fox , 1988, Seashore Animals of the Southeast, University of South
Carolina Press.
11/29/07 14:07