Starfish to starfish by the French zoologist de Blainville in 1830. It is derived from the Greek "aster", ἀστήρ (a star) and the Greek "eidos", εἶδος (form, likeness, appearance). The class Asteroidea belongs to the phylum Echinodermata. As well as the starfish, the echinoderms include sea urchins, sand dollars, brittle and basket stars, sea cucumbers and crinoids. The larvae of echinoderms have bilateral symmetry, but during metamorphosis this is replaced with radial symmetry, typically pentameric. Adult echinoderms are characterized by having a water vascular system with external tube feet and a calcareous endoskeleton consisting of ossicles connected by a mesh of
Tuft-tailed spiny tree-rat (), meaning "hair". "Lonchothrix" is a member of the Echimyini clade of arboreal Echimyidae rodents. The closest relative of "Lonchothrix" is "Mesomys", reflecting the fact that these taxa have once been classified in the same subfamily (Eumysopinae). These two genera share phylogenetic affinities with several taxa and clades: (i) "Echimys", "Phyllomys", "Makalata", "Pattonomys", and "Toromys" ; (ii) the bamboo rats "Dactylomys", "Olallamys", "Kannabateomys" together with "Diplomys" and "Santamartamys" ; and (iii) "Isothrix". Tuft-tailed spiny tree-rat The tuft-tailed spiny tree rat ("Lonchothrix emiliae") is a spiny rat species from South America. It is known from Brazil south of the Amazon River,