Arthropod

Epic card · No. 7292

Arthropods ( AR-thrə-pod) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (metameric) segments, and paired jointed appendages. In order to keep growing, they must go through stages of moulting, a process by which they shed their exoskeleton to reveal a new one. They form an extremely diverse group of up to ten million species. Haemolymph is the analogue of blood for most arthropods. An arthropod has an open circulatory system, with a body cavity called a haemocoel through which haemolymph circulates to the interior organs. Like their exteriors, the internal organs of arthropods are generally built of repeated segments. They have ladder-like nervous systems, with paired ventral nerve cords running through all segments and forming paired ganglia in each segment. Their heads are formed by fusion of varying numbers of segments, and their brains are formed by fusion of...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Cédric Aria, Fangchen Zhao, Han Zeng, Jin Guo, Maoyan Zhu Diego C. García-Bellido, Jean Vannier, Desmond Collins Charles Doolittle Walcott Micha L. Rieser Hans Hillewaert Lucarelli Warut Siriwut, Gre…, CC BY-SA 4.0