Phylum Porifera (Noun)
Meaning
Coextensive with the subkingdom Parazoa: sponges.
Classification
Nouns denoting animals.
Examples
- The phylum Porifera is a group of marine animals that belong to the subkingdom Parazoa, specifically including sponges and related species.
- Marine biologists have extensively studied the phylum Porifera to gain insights into the unique characteristics of Parazoa sponges.
- Historically, classification systems recognized the phylum Porifera as a distinct group within the kingdom Animalia.
- One of the defining features of animals in the phylum Porifera is the presence of Choanocytes, which are specialized cells that facilitate the filtering process characteristic of Parazoa sponges.
- The phylum Porifera was named by British zoologist Robert Edmond Grant in 1836 and contains approximately 5,000 known species, most of which are simple multicellular organisms like Parazoa sponges.