ArticleCommunications biology2023
A multiscale approach reveals elaborate circulatory system and intermittent heartbeat in velvet worms (Onychophora).
Article in Communications biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Evolution of Large Organism Size: Disparate Physiologies Share a Foundation at the Smallest Physical Scales.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Early evolvability in arthropod tagmosis exemplified by a new radiodont from the Burgess Shale.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Organ systems of a Cambrian euarthropod larva.Nature · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
An antagonistic hemolymph-muscular system is essential for soft-bodied invertebrates. Many ecdysozoans (molting animals) possess neither a heart nor a vascular or circulatory system, whereas most arthropods exhibit a well-developed circulatory system. How did this system evolve and how was it subsequently modified in panarthropod lineages? As the closest relatives of arthropods and tardigrades, onychophorans (velvet worms) represent a key group for addressing this question. We therefore analyzed the entire circulatory system of the peripatopsid Euperipatoides rowelli and discovered a surprisingly elaborate organization. Our findings suggest that the last common ancestor of Onychophora and Arthropoda most likely possessed an open vascular system, a posteriorly closed heart with segmental ostia, a pericardial sinus filled with nephrocytes and an impermeable pericardial septum, whereas the evolutionary origin of plical and pericardial channels is unclear. Our study further revealed an intermittent heartbeat-regular breaks of rhythmic, peristaltic contractions of the heart-in velvet worms, which might stimulate similar investigations in arthropods.
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