Balanoglossus in Mashail Island described it as a worm-like holothurian. The discovery of gill-slits in this animal by Kowalewsky (1865) led to creation of a special class Enteropneusta by Gegenbaur (1870). Bateson (1885) included them in Phylum Chordata. Hyman (1959), however, placed them near Echinodermata and gave Hemichordata a status of an independent phylum. This simple organism shows affinities with several diverse groups. Balanoglossus is a tuberculos or burrowing and exclusively marine animal. It is found in shallow waters between tide marks along the coast of warm and temperate oceans. Balanoglossus clavigerus is a U-shaped excavated in a sandy bottom Nemertines
Bacterial phyla CPR3, Kazan, Perigrinibacteria, SM2F11, WS6, and WWE3 were more recently proposed to belong to the larger CPR Group. To complicate matters, it has been suggested that several of these phyla are themselves actually superphyla (see the section on cryptic superphyla below). The proposed superphylum, Terrabacteria, includes Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Deinococcus–Thermus, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, and candidate phylum OP10. It has been proposed that several of the classes of the phylum Proteobacteria are phyla in their own right, which would make Proteobacteria a superphylum. It was recently proposed that the class Epsilonproteobacteria be combined with the order Desulfurellales to create the new phylum Epsilonbacteraeota.