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
Pterobranchia mitochondrial code Pterobranchia mitochondrial code The pterobranchia mitochondrial code is a genetic code used by the mitochondrial genome of "Rhabdopleura compacta" (Pterobranchia). The Pterobranchia are one of the two groups in the Hemichordata which together with the Echinodermata and Chordata form the three major lineages of deuterostomes. AUA translates to isoleucine in Rhabdopleura as it does in the Echinodermata and Enteropneusta while AUA encodes methionine in the Chordata. The assignment of AGG to lysine is not found elsewhere in deuterostome mitochondria but it occurs in some taxa of Arthropoda. This code shares with many other mitochondrial codes the reassignment of the UGA