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Velvet Worm — printable fact sheet
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Velvet Worm
Peripatus juliformis
Velvet worms (phylum Onychophora) are soft, caterpillar-like predators of damp tropical and temperate forest litter, and they are their own phylum, sister to the arthropods, with a body plan that has changed little since the Cambrian. They hunt with glue. A pair of oral papillae…
Did you know?
- Peripatus and other velvet worms are among the few animals that have changed very little since the Cambrian period, making them important for studying evolutionary biology.
- The velvet worm's slime jets whip from side to side without any muscle doing the whipping; the nozzle simply becomes unstable at high flow, and the animal lets physics spray the net. It eats its own dried slime afterwards to recover the protein. Some species live in matriarchal groups, hunt cooperatively, and feed in strict rank order. Velvet worms have their own phylum and are the closest living relatives of the arthropods, with a body plan essentially unchanged for over 500 million years.
What I learned
Draw the velvet worm
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