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The nervous system is primitive, with nerve cells scattered across the body in a network. The function of the nerve cells is to carry signals from sensory cells and to contractile cells. Groups of cells in the nerve net form nerve cords that may be essential for more rapid transmission. Cnidarians perform extracellular digestion    , with digestion completed by intracellular digestive processes. Food is taken into the gastrovascular cavity    , enzymes are secreted into the cavity, and the cells lining the cavity absorb the nutrient products of the extracellular digestive process. The gastrovascular cavity has only one opening that serves as both a mouth and an anus (an incomplete digestive system). Like the sponges, Cnidarian cells exchange oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogenous wastes by diffusion between cells in the epidermis and gastrodermis with water.

Cnidarian diversity

The phylum Cnidaria contains about 10,000 described species divided into four classes: Anthozoa, Scyphozoa, Cubozoa, and Hydrozoa.

The class Anthozoa includes all cnidarians that exhibit a sessile polyp body plan only; in other words, there is no medusa stage within their life cycle. Examples include sea anemones, sea pens, and corals, with an estimated number of 6,100 described species. Sea anemones are usually brightly colored and can attain a size of 1.8 to 10 cm in diameter. These animals are usually cylindrical in shape and are attached to a substrate. A mouth opening is surrounded by tentacles bearing cnidocytes ( [link] ).

A photo of a sea anemone with a pink, oval body surrounded by thick, waving tentacles.
Sea anemones are cnidarians of class Anthozoa. (credit: "Dancing With Ghosts"/Flickr)

Scyphozoans include all the jellies and are motile and exclusively marine with about 200 described species. The medusa is the dominant stage in the life cycle, although there is also a polyp stage. Species range from 2 cm in length to the largest scyphozoan species, Cyanea capillata , at 2 m across. Jellies display a characteristic bell-like body shape ( [link] ).

A photo of a bright red jellyfish with a dome-shaped body. Long tentacles drift from the bottom edge of the dome, and ribbon-like appendages trail from the middle of the body.
Scyphozoans include the jellies. (credit: "Jimg944"/Flickr)

Concept in action

Identify the life cycle stages of jellies using this video animation game from the New England Aquarium.

The class Cubozoa includes jellies that are square in cross-section and so are known as “box jellyfish.” These species may achieve sizes of 15–25 cm. Cubozoans are anatomically similar to the jellyfish. A prominent difference between the two classes is the arrangement of tentacles. Cubozoans have muscular pads called pedalia at the corners of the square bell canopy, with one or more tentacles attached to each pedalium. In some cases, the digestive system may extend into the pedalia. Cubozoans typically exist in a polyp form that develops from a larva. The polyps may bud to form more polyps and then transform into the medusoid forms.

Concept in action

Watch this video to learn more about the deadly toxins of the box jellyfish.

Hydrozoa includes nearly 3,500 species, “The Hydrozoa Directory,” Peter Schuchert, Muséum Genève, last updated November 2012, http://www.ville-ge.ch/mhng/hydrozoa/hydrozoa-directory.htm. most of which are marine. Most species in this class have both polyp and medusa forms in their life cycle. Many hydrozoans form colonies composed of branches of specialized polyps that share a gastrovascular cavity. Colonies may also be free-floating and contain both medusa and polyp individuals in the colony, as in the Portuguese Man O’War ( Physalia ) or By-the-Wind Sailor ( Velella ). Other species are solitary polyps or solitary medusae. The characteristic shared by all of these species is that their gonads are derived from epidermal tissue, whereas in all other cnidarians, they are derived from gastrodermal tissue ( [link] ab ).

Part a shows an illustration of a Chirodropus gorilla box jellyfish. It has a tall, square dome with four pedalia, clusters of tentacles hanging down, and a delicate skirt inside. Part b is a light microscopy photo of a hydra, which is a long tubular stalk with eight long, thin, radially arranged tentacles at one end.
A (a) box jelly is an example from class Cubozoa. The (b) hydra is from class Hydrozoa. (credit b: scale-bar data from Matt Russell)

Section summary

Animals included in phylum Porifera are parazoans and do not possess true tissues. These organisms show a simple organization. Sponges have multiple cell types that are geared toward executing various metabolic functions.

Cnidarians have outer and inner tissue layers sandwiching a noncellular mesoglea. Cnidarians possess a well-formed digestive system and carry out extracellular digestion. The cnidocyte is a specialized cell for delivering toxins to prey and predators. Cnidarians have separate sexes. They have a life cycle that involves morphologically distinct forms—medusoid and polypoid—at various stages in their life cycle.

Questions & Answers

A golfer on a fairway is 70 m away from the green, which sits below the level of the fairway by 20 m. If the golfer hits the ball at an angle of 40° with an initial speed of 20 m/s, how close to the green does she come?
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A mouse of mass 200 g falls 100 m down a vertical mine shaft and lands at the bottom with a speed of 8.0 m/s. During its fall, how much work is done on the mouse by air resistance
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Chemistry is a branch of science that deals with the study of matter,it composition,it structure and the changes it undergoes
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A ball is thrown straight up.it passes a 2.0m high window 7.50 m off the ground on it path up and takes 1.30 s to go past the window.what was the ball initial velocity
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2. A sled plus passenger with total mass 50 kg is pulled 20 m across the snow (0.20) at constant velocity by a force directed 25° above the horizontal. Calculate (a) the work of the applied force, (b) the work of friction, and (c) the total work.
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you have been hired as an espert witness in a court case involving an automobile accident. the accident involved car A of mass 1500kg which crashed into stationary car B of mass 1100kg. the driver of car A applied his brakes 15 m before he skidded and crashed into car B. after the collision, car A s
Samuel Reply
can someone explain to me, an ignorant high school student, why the trend of the graph doesn't follow the fact that the higher frequency a sound wave is, the more power it is, hence, making me think the phons output would follow this general trend?
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Nevermind i just realied that the graph is the phons output for a person with normal hearing and not just the phons output of the sound waves power, I should read the entire thing next time
Joseph
Follow up question, does anyone know where I can find a graph that accuretly depicts the actual relative "power" output of sound over its frequency instead of just humans hearing
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"Generation of electrical energy from sound energy | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore" ***ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7150687?reload=true
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A string is 3.00 m long with a mass of 5.00 g. The string is held taut with a tension of 500.00 N applied to the string. A pulse is sent down the string. How long does it take the pulse to travel the 3.00 m of the string?
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Source:  OpenStax, Natural history supplemental. OpenStax CNX. Aug 19, 2014 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11695/1.1
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