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
Worm were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, the Chordata, while his Insecta (which included the crustaceans and arachnids) and Vermes have been renamed or broken up. The process was begun in 1793 by Lamarck, who called the Vermes "une espèce de chaos" (a sort of chaos) and split the group into three new phyla, worms, echinoderms, and polyps (which contained corals and jellyfish). By 1809, in his "Philosophie Zoologique", Lamarck had created 9 phyla apart from vertebrates