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World list of turbellarian worms:
Acoelomorpha, Catenulida, Rhabditophora
(formerly class Turbellaria of the phylum Platyhelminthes)

(part of WoRMS - the World Register of Marine Species)

Quick stats

3,307 accepted species
4,959 species names including synonyms

Taxonomic context

Bilateria
Xenacoelomorpha
Xenoturbellida
Acoelomorpha Ehlers, 1985
Nemertodermatida Karling, 1940
Acoela Uljanin, 1870
Nephrozoa
Deuterostomia
Ambulacraria (Echinodermata / Hemichordata)
Chordata (Vertebrata / Urochordata / Cephalochordata)
Protostomia
Platyhelminthes Minot, 1876 [Hyman, 1951] /
Catenulida Graff, 1905
Rhabditophora Ehlers, 1985
Bothrioplanida Sopott-Ehlers, 1985
Fecampiida Rohde, Luton & Johnson, 1994
Gnosonesimida Karling, 1974
Macrostomorpha Doe, 1986
Dolichomicrostomida Janssen, Vizoso, Schulte, Littlewood, Waeschenbach, & Schaerer, 2015
Haplopharyngidae Meixner, 1938
Macrostomidae Beneden E., 1870
Polycladida Lang, 1881
Acotylea Lang, 1884
Cotylea Lang, 1884
Prolecithophora Karling, 1940
Prorhynchida Karling, 1974
Proseriata Meixner, 1938
Lithophora Steinbock, 1925
Unguiphora Sopott-Ehlers, 1985
Rhabdocoela Meixner, 1925
Dalytyphloplanida Willems, Wallberg, Jondelius, Littlewood, Backeljau, Schockaert, & Artois, 2006
Neodalyelliida Willems et al., 2006
Neotyphloplanida Willems et al., 2006
Limnotyphloplanida Van Steenkiste et al., 2013
Thalassotyphloplanida Willems et al., 2006
Kalyptorhynchia Graff, 1905
Tricladida Lang, 1884
Maricola Hallez, 1892
Cavernicola Sluys, 1990
Continenticola Carranza, Littlewood, Clough, Ruiz-Trillo, Baguna, & Riutort, 1998

About turbellarians

Traditional, pre-cladistic systems placed the flatworms in a single phylum, the Platyhelminthes, subdivided into the classes Turbellaria, Monogenea, Trematoda, and Cestoda. Turbellarians are the largely free-living flatworms---those that don't parasitize other animals---while the other classes encompass the obligate parasites, most of which live in or on the bodies of vertebrates. Turbellaria is, in particular, considered an invalid class because it is not monophyletic. (It is either paraphyletic--that is, having descendants, namely the parasitic classes, that are not classified within it [Ehlers, 1985]; or it could be polyphyletic--that is, having arisen from more than one ancestor, one for the acoels and another for catenulidans and rhabditophorans [Baguñà and Riutort, 2004; Phillipé et al., 2011]). The term "turbellarian" can still be applied to those worms that were formerly classified in the Turbellaria, but the term "Turbellaria" (specifically, the capitalized taxon name) would have to be written in quotation marks to indicate its paraphyletic status. Not all turbellarians are free-living.

In recognition of recent proposals based on molecular sequences (particularly of 18s rDNA, some Hox genes, and, most recently, fuller genomic data) the system displayed here treats the Acoelomorpha as separate from the phylum Platyhelminthes. The position and status of Acoelomorpha have been volatile in molecular systematics, some claiming that it itself is paraphyletic, many claiming that it (possibly as separate taxa Acoela and Nemertodermatida) belongs near the base of the animal tree of life, as the most basal bilaterians---that is, the most primitive of any animal phylum outside of the sponges and cnidarians. The most recent genomic study (Phillipé et al., 2011), placed the Acoelomorpha within the Deuterostomia, in a phylum Xenacoelomorpha that includes also the enigmatic sack-like animal Xenoturbella); Xenacoelomorpha is placed as sister group to the Ambulacraria (Ehinoderms + Hemichordata). Significantly, the earlier proposals that Acoelomorpha was the most primitive bilaterian---a controversial claim that did not make sense in terms of the morphology of acoels---are now seen to be a result of a statistical error known as long-branch attraction. The Platyhelminthes, as defined in these molecular systems, would be only distantly related to the Acoelomorpha and classified as a lophotrochozoan phylum.

This taxonomic database covers all turbellarian flatworms, freshwater as well as marine ones, and including parasitic turbellarians. The position of the major parasitic taxa of the Platyhelminthes (the other classes in the traditional system), encompassed now in the taxon Neodermata, is, according to the latest cladistic analysis of phylogenomic data (Egger et al., 2015), within a group that is sister taxon to Bothrioplanida.

References cited

About the taxonomic listing

Louise Bush sorting turbellarians
Steve Schilling collecting geographic data

Data in this listing were initially compiled by Louise Bush. Dr. Bush's last update to the database was in 1991, the year of her death. Since 1991, the database has been updated by S. Tyler, Steve Schilling, Matt Hooge, and Tom Artois, with help from specialists on various groups of turbellarian platyhelminths, including Masaharu Kawakatsu, Ulrich Ehlers, Marco Curini-Galletti, Oleg Timoshkin, Lukas Schärer, Wim Willems, Johannes Achatz, Anatoly Petrov, Julian P. S. Smith III, Eduard Solà, Francisco Brusa, Cristina Damborenea, Miquel Vila Farre.

Images are mostly extracted from scientific papers describing species. Copyrights for images remain with the original print publishers. Copies of many of the images of Rhabdocoela and Proseriata were kindly provided by Tom Artois, Ernest Schockaert, Matt Hooge, and Rick Hochberg. Images of Acoela, Prolecithophora, and other Rhabdocoela were provided by Matt Hooge.

Many of the notes on these turbellarian taxa and references dealing with them are from index cards that Louise Bush maintained, displayed here either as images of those cards themselves or, in the case of Acoelomorpha species, transcribed into text entries. Steve Schilling scanned the Bush's cards and transcribed notes from many of them for this database.

Steve Schilling entered almost all of the geographic-distribution data. He combed the literature for any mention of collections of turbellarians and scrupulously compared geographic names mentioned with names appearing in gazeteers. Some of the early phases of this work on geographic distributions of species was supported by the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS).

Citation

Usage of data from the World List of Turbellarian worms in scientific publications should be acknowledged by citing as follows:

If the data from the World List of Turbellarian worms constitute a substantial proportion of the records used in analyses, the chief editor(s) of the database should be contacted. There may be additional data which may prove valuable to such analyses.

Individual pages are individually authored and dated. These can be cited separately: the proper citation is provided at the bottom of each page.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0118804.

Editors

Website and databases developed and hosted by VLIZ · Page generated 2024-03-19 · contact: Seth Tyler