---
title: "Echinoderms & Worms (Echinodermata & Invertebrata) | Evolutionary Clade | AnimalTracks.wiki"
description: "Water vascular hydraulic systems, cryptobiosis survival, and ambush strike jaws. Explore 12 species in the Echinoderms & Worms evolutionary lineage."
image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/icon-512.png"
---

# Echinoderms & Worms (*Echinodermata & Invertebrata*)

> Water vascular hydraulic systems, cryptobiosis survival, and ambush strike jaws.

This diverse group unites radical evolutionary body plans, from five-part radial echinoderms with hydraulic tube feet to microscopic tardigrades that survive the vacuum of space, and deep-sea polychaetes armed with spring-loaded ambush jaws.

## Key Evolutionary Adaptations

- Tardigrades enter cryptobiosis by expelling 99 percent of water, surviving absolute zero, boiling water, and cosmic radiation.
- Starfish use hydraulic water vascular systems to exert continuous mechanical pulling force to pry open bivalve shells.
- Bobbit worms conceal multi-meter bodies in ocean sediment before exploding upward with spring-loaded predatory jaws.

## Member Species (12 Creatures)

- [Amazonian Giant Centipede](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/giant-centipede/) (*Scolopendra gigantea*)
  - **Superpower**: Venom-bearing fangs modified from the legs on its first body segment.
  - **Musical Match**: Korn (Nu-Metal & 90s Alt-Metal)
- [Bobbit Worm](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/bobbit-worm/) (*Eunice aphroditois*)
  - **Superpower**: An eversible pharynx tipped with sharp maxillae that thrusts out of its burrow fast enough to split a passing fish in half, with five antennae and two eyes to detect prey.
  - **Musical Match**: Deftones (Nu-Metal & 90s Alt-Metal)
- [Common Earthworm](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/common-earthworm/) (*Lumbricus terrestris*)
  - **Superpower**: Crawls in waves, lengthening and shortening its body segments
  - **Musical Match**: Chaosbay (Modern Metalcore & Djent)
- [Common Starfish](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/common-starfish/) (*Asterias rubens*)
  - **Superpower**: Pushes its stomach into a mussel shell and digests the meal inside
  - **Musical Match**: Bohren & der Club of Gore (Glacial Ambient & Drone Soundscapes)
- [European Medicinal Leech](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/european-medicinal-leech/) (*Hirudo medicinalis*)
  - **Superpower**: Anticoagulant saliva, and one blood meal that can last it 12 to 18 months
  - **Musical Match**: Lindsey Stirling (2010s Pop & Electropop)
- [Giant Antarctic Sea Spider](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/giant-antarctic-sea-spider/) (*Colossendeis megalonyx*)
  - **Superpower**: Like other sea spiders it has no gills: oxygen diffuses in through pores in its cuticle
  - **Musical Match**: BIG|BRAVE (Sludge Metal & Heavy Drone)
- [Giant Barrel Sponge](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/giant-barrel-sponge/) (*Xestospongia muta*)
  - **Superpower**: Can filter up to 50,000 times its own volume of seawater every day
  - **Musical Match**: Sunn O))) (Sludge Metal & Heavy Drone)
- [House Centipede](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/house-centipede/) (*Scutigera coleoptrata*)
  - **Superpower**: Rear legs that cross above and outside the legs in front of them, which prevents entanglement
  - **Musical Match**: Tune-Yards (Art Punk & Experimental Post-Punk)
- [Planarian](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/planarian/) (*Schmidtea mediterranea*)
  - **Superpower**: Planarians regenerate rapidly from tiny tissue pieces
  - **Musical Match**: Laurie Spiegel (Krautrock & Electronic Pioneers)
- [Purple Sea Urchin](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/purple-sea-urchin/) (*Strongylocentrotus purpuratus*)
  - **Superpower**: Scrapes algae with five teeth and digs hollows in rock
  - **Musical Match**: Godflesh (Industrial Rock & Cyberpunk)
- [Sandfish Sea Cucumber](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/sandfish-sea-cucumber/) (*Holothuria scabra*)
  - **Superpower**: Turns sea floor sediment into about 26 pellets an hour
  - **Musical Match**: Rhythm & Sound (Sub-Bass Dub & Industrial Heavyweight)
- [Tardigrade (Water Bear)](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/tardigrade/) (*Hypsibius exemplaris*)
  - **Superpower**: Dries into a dormant "tun" in which its cells and mitochondria shrink, and answers gamma-ray damage by rapidly switching on many DNA-repair genes.
  - **Musical Match**: Aphex Twin (IDM & Glitch Ambient Synthesis)

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