Courses
Courses for Kids
Free study material
Offline Centres
More
Store Icon
Store

Worm

ffImage
Last updated date: 20th Apr 2024
Total views: 312.6k
Views today: 4.12k
hightlight icon
highlight icon
highlight icon
share icon
copy icon

Definition of Worm

Worms are many different distant relatives. They usually have a long cylindrical tubular body with no limbs or eyes. Worms range in size from microscopic to marine polychaete worms that are over one meter in length. African giant earthworms can range from six meters. Various types of worms occupy a small part of the parasitic niche and live in the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land, but live in marine or freshwater environments, or dig underground. In biology, "worm" refers to an outdated taxa worm, which was used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrates, and is now considered to be a collateral animal. The name comes from the Old English word wyrm. Most animals called "worms'' are invertebrates, but the term is also used for amphibians and the slow worm Anguis, a legless burrowing lizard. Invertebrates commonly referred to as "worms'' include annelids that are earthworms and marine polychaetes or bristle caterpillars, nematodes known as roundworms, flatworms, marine worms, Marine caterpillars, priapolid and insect larvae such as larvae and worms. 

[Image will be Uploaded Soon]

About Worms

Worms can also be called roundworms or flatworms, especially in medical terms that refer to parasitic worms, especially nematodes and tapeworms that are taenia that are parasitic in the host's intestines. When animals or humans "have worms", it means that they are infected with parasites, usually roundworms or tapeworms. Lungworms are also a common parasitic worm, found in various animal species, such as fish and cats. 

Group of Worms 

In the 13th century, worms were considered part of the category of reptiles in Europe. The reptiles consisted of various egg-laying creatures, including snakes, lizards, and various amphibians. In everyday language, the term worm is also applied to various other creatures, such as larvae, insects, millipedes, centipedes, shipworms teredo worms, and even some vertebrates, such as blind worms and caecilians. Worms include several groups. The earliest flat animals, including flatworms, tapeworms, and trematodes. They have flat, banded, or leaf-shaped bodies with one pair of eyes in front. Some are parasites. The second group contains roundworms, roundworms, and hookworms. This phylum is called nematodes. Nematodes can be microscopic, like vinegar nematodes, or more than one meter long. They exist in moist soil, moss, decomposing material, freshwater, or saltwater. Some roundworms are also parasites. For example, Guinea worms live under the skin of the feet and legs of people in tropical countries. The third group consists of segmented worms whose bodies are divided into segments or rings. This door is called Annelida. Among them are earthworms and caterpillars in the sea. Common worms include earthworms, which are members of the phylum Annelids. Other groups of invertebrates can be called worms, especially in colloquialism. Especially many unrelated insect larvae are called "worms", such as railroad worms, woodworms, fireflies, red worms, hookworms, mealworms, silkworms, caterpillars, etc. 


Therefore, helminthology is the study of parasitic worms. When a person or an animal such as a dog or a horse is said to have worms, ​​it means that they are infected with parasites, usually roundworms or tapeworms. Deworming is a method of removing worms that have infected humans or animals by applying anthelmintics. A ringworm is not a worm at all, but a skin fungus. 

Glow Worm

Glow Worm is the generic name for several groups of insect larvae and adult female larvae that emit light through bioluminescence. Glowworms include European fireflies and other members of the Firefly family, but bioluminescence also occurs in beetles in the Firefly, Phengodidae, and Rhagophthalmidae families and in the mosquitoes of the Ceratium fungus, members of the genera Arachnocampa, Keroplatus, and Orfelia. The four beetles are bioluminescent. The wingless larval females and larvae of these bioluminescent species are often referred to as fireflies. Winged males may or may not exhibit bioluminescence. Its light can be emitted in the form of flashes or continuous luminescence, and its color usually ranges from green, yellow to orange. These families are closely related and are members of the superfamily Elateroidea. Phylogenetic analysis shows that bioluminescence may have a single evolutionary origin in the Lampyridae, Phengodidae, and Gymnophthalmidae families. But it is likely to appear independently in Elateridae. Family Elateridae is known as click beetles. Among the estimated 10,000 species belonging to this family, about 200 species from tropical America and some islands in Melanesia are bioluminescent. They all belong to the Pyrophorinae subfamily, except for one species, Campyloxenuspyrothorax belonging to the Campyloxeninae subfamily and Balgus schnusei belonging to Thylacosterninae. It contains about 2,000 species all over the world. There are some fireflies in this family. Family Phengodidae is commonly known as the firefly beetle. It contains approximately 230 species unique to the New World. The family also includes railway worms, which are unique among all terrestrial bioluminescent organisms that produce red light. Family Rhagophthalmidae contains about 30 species found in Asia. The legitimacy of this family has not yet been fully resolved. Rhagophthalmidae was formerly considered a subfamily of Phengodidae and then regarded as a unique family.

Sea Worm

Any worm that lives in a marine environment is considered a sea worm. Marine worms exist in several different phyla, including flatworms, nematodes, annelids that are segmented worms, trichognathus, hemispinal nematodes, and Phoronida. Many of these worms have special tentacles, which are used to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, and can also be used for reproduction. Sea worms have specialized tentacles that allow gas exchange, further reducing the oxygen content in dead zones and shallow water, and promoting the growth of plants and algae. Polinoid scaly worms are estimated to have entered deep-sea ecosystems about 60 million years ago. By comparing 120 genes, the researchers concluded that genes related to DNA repair, recombination, and integration exist only in deep-sea polynoids, which is related to the idea that they must adapt to possible hypoxia in deep water. surroundings. Some marine worms are tubular worms, among which giant tubular worms live in waters near submarine volcanoes and can withstand temperatures as high as 90 degrees celsius. Some worms can live in extremely deep trenches, such as in the Pacific Ocean near the Galapagos Islands.


In recent years, it has been observed that marine worms especially those found in the ocean ingest microplastic particles found in the ocean. This trend worries many scientists because marine worms are an important food source for many fish and wading birds. Marine worms are usually the key species in the ecosystem. The introduction of plastic into the ocean will not only slow down the growth of marine worms but also affect the food chain of the ecosystem. 

Tree Worms

They are also known as dead worm. Polychaete also known as mane caterpillar or polychaete, is an annelid, usually the ocean. Each body segment has a pair of fleshy bumps called pseudopods, on which there are many bristles made of chitin, called trichomes. This category describes more than 10,000 species. Common representatives include sandworms and sandworms or Alitta clam worm. The polychaete is a strong and widely distributed class, its species living in the cooler ocean temperatures of the deep ocean plains and can tolerate extremely high temperatures near hydrothermal vents. Polychaetes are found in all depths of Earth's oceans, from living as plankton near the surface to 2 to 3-centimeter specimens observed by the Nereus robotic ocean probe at the bottom of the Challenger Deep. Only 168 species are known in freshwater that is less than 2% of all polychaetes. In Eunice's aphroditois, polychaetes are segmented worms, usually less than 4 inches long, but ranging in length from 0.04 inches to 10 feet. They are sometimes brightly colored and can be iridescent or even sparkling. Each segment has a pair of highly vascularized, paddle-shaped accessory feet that are used for locomotion and serve as the main respiratory surface for worms in many species. Clusters of bristles, called caterpillars, protrude from the pseudopods. However, hairy animals are very different from this generalized pattern and can display a variety of different body types. The most common polychaetes are bottom crawlers, but other animals have adapted to many different ecological niches such as digging, swimming, pelagic life, pipe dwelling or boredom, symbiosis, and parasitism, and need to carry out their structure. bodily. Compared to other annelids, the head or prostomy are relatively developed. It protrudes forward into the mouth and is therefore located at the bottom of the animal. The head usually includes two to four pairs of eyes, although some species are blind. These are usually fairly simple structures that can only distinguish between light and dark, although some species have large, lensed eyes that may be capable of more complex vision, including the bovine eye, which is comparable to the eyes of cephalopods and vertebrates. The head also includes a pair of antennae, tentacle-like tentacles, and a pair of small, cilia-lined pits called "neck organs." The latter appears to be chemoreceptors, which help the worms find food. 

Internal Anatomy of Tree Worms

The external surface of the body wall consists of a simple columnar epithelium covered with a thin layer of stratum corneum. Underneath is a thin layer of connective tissue, a layer of circular muscle, a layer of longitudinal muscle, and the peritoneum that surrounds the body cavity. The extra oblique muscle moves the accessory foot. In most species, the body cavity is divided into compartments separated by the peritoneal lamina between each segment, but in some species, it is more continuous. 


The polychaete mouth is the part behind the front mouth, and its shape varies according to diet because this group includes predators, herbivores, filter feeders, scavengers, and parasites. However, in general, they have a pair of chins and a pharynx that can come out quickly, allowing the worm to grab the food and put it in its mouth. In some species, the pharynx is modified to grow a long proboscis. The digestive tract is a simple tube, usually with a stomach. Smaller species, as well as those adapted for burrowing, do not have gills and can only breathe through the surface of the body. Most of the other species have external gills, usually associated with accessory legs. They generally have a simple but well-developed circulatory system. The two main blood vessels provide smaller blood vessels to supply the accessory foot and intestines. The blood flows forward in the dorsal blood vessel above the intestine and returns through the body in the ventral blood vessel below the intestine. The blood vessels themselves are contractible, which helps to promote blood flow, so most species do not need a heart. However, in some cases, there are heart-like muscle pumps in all parts of the system. In contrast, some species have little or no circulatory system, transporting oxygen in the body cavity fluid that fills the body cavity. Blood can be colorless, or it can have any of three different respiratory pigments. The most common of these is hemoglobin, but some groups use green hemiheme or cypermethrin instead. The nervous system is composed of single or double abdominal nerve cords, which run through the body, each section has a ganglion and a series of small nerves. Compared with other annelids, the brain is relatively large and located on the top of the head. The endocrine glands are attached to the posterior ventral surface of the brain and seem to be involved in reproductive activities. In addition to the sensory organs of the head, light-sensitive eye spots, static cysts and many extra sensory nerve endings are likely to be related to the sense of touch and also occur in the body. Polychaetes have varying numbers of protokidneys or metanephros to excrete waste, and in some cases may have a relatively complex structure. The body also contains green "prochlorinated" tissues, similar to those found in Oligochaeta, which appear to play a role in metabolism, similar to that of the vertebrate liver. The stratum corneum is composed of cross-linked collagen fibers. Their jaws are made of hardened collagen and their bristles are made of hardened chitin.

FAQs on Worm

1. What is a Fungal Firefly?

Answer: All three genera of fungal mosquitoes are bioluminescent and are called fireflies in their larval stage. They produce blue-green light. The larvae weave a sticky web to trap food. They exist in caves, cantilevers, and other protected wet areas. They are generally classified in the family Keroplatidae, but this is not generally accepted, and some authors classify them as Mycetophilidae. Although similar in function and appearance, the bioluminescence systems of the three genera are not homologous and are believed to have evolved separately. Genus Arachnocampa has only about five species found in New Zealand and Australia. The most famous member of this genus is the New Zealand firefly Arachnocampa Luminosa. The larvae are predatory and use their light to attract prey to their nets. It belongs to Orfelia, sometimes called gloomily. It contains Orfelia fultoni, a unique species found only in North America. Its larvae can use their light to attract prey such as springtails and other small insects, but their main food is fungal spores. Genus Keroplatus are found in Eurasia. Unlike Arachnocampa and Orfelia, Keroplatus larvae only feed on fungal spores. Its bioluminescence is considered to have no function and is degraded.

2. What is the History of Worms?

Answer: In taxonomy, worm refers to an obsolete grouping. Vermes, Carl Linnaeus, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck are used for all non-arthropod invertebrates and are now considered polyphyletic. In 1758, Linnaeus created the first hierarchical classification in his Systema Naturae. In their original plan, the animals were one of the three kingdoms, divided into Helminthidae, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibians, Birds, and Mammals. Since then the last four have been grouped into a single phylum, Chordates, and its Insects including crustaceans and arachnids and the worms have changed names or have decomposed. The process began in 1793 by Lamarck, who divided Vermes into three new phyla, namely, worms, echinoderms, and polyps including corals and jellyfish. In 1809, in his "Philosophy of Animals", Lamarck had created 9 phyla, with the exception of vertebrates and mollusks, namely volume pods, annelids, crustaceans , arachnids, insects, worms, radiation, polyps, and infusion sets. The ancestors of the chordates are very worms.