Nemerteans' affinities with Annelida (including Echiura, Pogonophora, Vestimentifera and perhaps Sipuncula) and Mollusca make the ribbon-worms members of Lophotrochozoa, which <!-- include more animal phyla than any other metazoan clade than Animalia and --> include about half of the extant animal phyla.

Most protostome phyla outside the Lophotrochozoa are members of Ecdysozoa ("animals that molt"), which include Arthropoda, Nematoda and Priapulida. Most other bilaterian phyla are in the Deuterostomia, which include Echinodermata and Chordata. The Acoelomorpha, which are neither protostomes nor deuterostomes, are regarded as basal bilaterians.

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With other phyla:

  • Phylogenetic Position of Nemertea Derived from Phylogenomic Data - Torsten H. Struck and Frauke Fisse
  • Assembling the lophotrochozoan (=spiralian) tree of life - Giribet
  • There is no support for Jensen's hypothesis of nemerteans as ancestors to the vertebrates - Sundberg, Turbeville, & Härlin
  • Phylogeny and mitochondrial gene order variation in Lophotrochozoa in the light of new mitogenomic data from Nemertea - Podsiadlowski, Braband, Struck, von Döhren and Bartolomaeus

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See also

  • Emplectonema neesii
  • Lineus longissimus
  • Parborlasia corrugatus

Notes

References

  • The Marine Biological Laboratory: Phylum Nemertea (Nemertinea, Nemertini, Rhynchocoela)
  • Nemertea LifeDesk
  • Video of a Nemertea in Puget Sound