Animal mesoderm forms by enterocoelic pouching, through invagination of the endoderm. The main deuterostome phyla are the Echinodermata and the Chordata. Echinoderms are exclusively marine and include starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. The chordates are dominated by the vertebrates (animals with backbones), which consist of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The deuterostomes also include the Hemichordata (acorn worms). The Ecdysozoa are protostomes, named after their shared trait of ecdysis, growth by moulting. They include the largest animal phylum, the Arthropoda, which contains insects, spiders, crabs, and their kin. All of these have a body divided into repeating segments, typically
Nephridium In freshwater crustacea, the saccate metanephridia are especially large because they are involved in osmoregulation. They have to remove large amounts of water from the tissues, as the crustacean's tissues are hypertonic to the surrounding water. A protonephridium ("proto" = "first") is a network of dead-end tubules lacking internal openings found in the phyla Platyhelminthes, Nemertea, Rotifera and Chordata (lancelets). The ends are called "flame cells" (if ciliated) or "solenocytes" (if flagellated); they function in osmoregulation and ionoregulation, respectively. The terminal cells are located at the blind end of the protonephridium. Each cell has one or more cilia and their