Class 2: Polyps

Stage 2

These are gemmiparous animals:

• with gelatinous regenerating bodies
• without any interior organ except an alimentary canal with a single opening.
• with terminal mouth surrounded by radiating tentacles with ciliated or rotatory organs.

The majority adhere to each other, communicate together by their alimentary canal, and thus form composite animals.

Observations

The organic structure of polyps are more advanced than infusorians.

They already have:

• a consistently regular form
• a special organ for digestion, and consequently with a mouth, the entry to their alimentary sack.

The polyp has a small elongated body, gelatinous, very irritable.

It has at its upper extremity a mouth with either rotatory organs or radiating tentacles

• These serve as the entry point to an alimentary canal which has no other opening

These can adhere and live together in a common life.

They do not have nerves for feeling, nor special organs for respiration, nor vessels for the circulation of their fluids.

Polyp Orders

1. Rotifer Polyps – They have around their mouths ciliated and rotatory organs
2. Polyps in Polyparies – They have around their mouths radiating tentacles and are fixed in a polypary which does not float on the oceans.

• 2a – Membranous or Horny polypary, without a distinct outer crust
• 2b – Polypary with a horny axis, covered with a crust
• 2c – Polypary with an axis and partly or entirely stony, and covered over with a bark like crust
• 2d – Polypary entirely stony without a crust

3. Floating Polyps – A polypary free, elongated, floating in water, and having a horny or bony axis covered with a skin common to all the polyps; radiating tentacles around the mouth
4. Naked Polyps – They have radiating often multiple tentacles at their mouths; they do not form polyparies.
5. Rotifer Polyps – They have around their mouths ciliated and rotatory organs

Table of Polyps