Caitlin McCallThe Diversity of Cnidarians
What is a Cnidarian?
Let's start with the root word. Cnidaria is a phylum under Kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of animals found exclusively in aquatic environments: they are predominantly marine. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, which are specialized cells that they use mainly for capturing prey.
That's a lot of fancy science lingo!
Let me show you some organisms you've likely seen before!
Cnidarians can be broken down into four major classes.
Scyphozoa (jellies):
Cubozoa (box jellies, sea wasp):
Anthozoa (sea anenomies, sea pens, and corals):
