SIMRbase Organisms

Nematostella vectensis (Starlet Sea Anemone)

Cnidaria – the animal phylum that includes sea anemones, corals, jellyfish, and hydra – occupies a critical position in the tree of life. As the simplest Eumetazoans (animals with a tissue grade of organization) they are the most primitive animals with epithelial cells, neurons, stem cells, complex extra-cellular matrix, muscle fibers, and a fixed axis of symmetry. Ediacaran fossils with Cnidarian affinities are among the most ancient animal relics. As the principal architects and components of coral reefs, anthozoans (corals) are responsible for the maintenance of tremendous marine diversity. The sea anemone Nematostella vectensis... [more]

Nothobranchius furzeri (African killifish, turquoise killifish)

Nothobranchius furzeri, the turquoise killifish, is a species of killifish from the family Nothobranchiidae native to Africa where it is only known from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This annual killifish inhabits ephemeral pools in semi-arid areas with scarce and erratic precipitations and have adapted to the routine drying of their environment by evolving desiccation-resistant eggs that can remain dormant in the dry mud for one and maybe more years by entering into diapause. Due to very short duration of the rain season, the natural lifespan of these animals is limited to a few months and their captive lifespan is likewise short, mak... [more]

Order Chiroptera (Bats)

Bats are among the most diverse and ecologically important mammals on Earth, with over 1,400 species—nearly 20% of all mammalian species. These extraordinary creatures have evolved the unique ability to fly, with sizes ranging from the tiny 2-gram bumblebee bat, which has a wingspan of just 6 inches, to the impressive flying foxes, weighing up to 1.6 kilograms and spanning up to 5 feet 7 inches. This vast diversity in size, along with other fascinating phenotypic traits such as echolocation and specialized dietary habits, makes bats a compelling subject of study.

Bats also play a crucial role in sustaining healthy ecosystems... [more]

Entosphenus tridentatus (Pacific Lamprey)
Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus): The Pacific lamprey is an anadromous parasitic lamprey species native to the West Coast of North America. The species is an important cultural food resource to the Columbia River Treaty Tribes of the U.S. Pacific Northwest and has been since time immemorial. The Columbia River discharges to the Pacific Ocean, is the largest river of the Pacific Northwest region of North America occupying a basin size of 258,000 square miles, and is the center of abundance of Pacific lamprey. The genome was sequenced in part to support ongoing conservation efforts of the species which has been heavily impacte... [more]
Lampetra richardsoni (Western Brook Lamprey)
Western Brook Lamprey (Lampetra richardsoni): Many lamprey species have a prolonged larval period, after which they metamorphose into a parasitic adult phase that attaches to and feeds on various fish species. The Western brook lamprey is a freshwater resident species that has evolved to forgo the parasitic lifestyle and instead spawn shortly after metamorphosis. Most species that have lost a parasitic stage have close relatives (or “paired species”) that are parasitic. In the case of the Western brook lamprey, this is the Western river lamprey (Lampetra ayresii). Thus far the Western brook lamprey is the only nonparasitic specie... [more]
Scolanthus callimorphus (Worm anemone)
The worm anemone has an elongated column measuring up to 14 cm in length and 12 mm in diameter. The tentacles are relatively stout, very long and up to 16 in number. Tentacles are transparent becoming strongly tinted with brown in the outer half, spotted with opaque white or cream, the spots becoming larger towards the tips where they tend to form transverse bars. The disc is pale buff or cream, with a well-defined pattern of rich, often purplish-brown.

Information from: MaLIN
Schmidtea mediterranea Sexual (Sexual Planaria)
Smed flatworms are bilaterally symmetric, triploblastic animals that possess a wide variety of differentiated cell types and organ systems. Smed are stable diploids that exist as two biotypes: asexual animals that reproduce by fission, and obligate cross-fertilizing hermaphrodites that reproduce sexually (Newmark and Sánchez Alvarado, 2002; Newmark et al., 2008). Smed embryos are direct developers: newborn hatchlings grow and mature into adult worms without an intervening larval stage (Sánchez Alvarado, 2003). At hatching, juveniles are sexually immature but otherwise possess a body plan grossly similar to the adult hermaphrodite (Sánchez ... [more]
Petromyzon marinus (Sea Lamprey)

The sea lamprey is a member of an ancient lineage that diverged from the vertebrate stem approximately 550 million years ago (MYA). By virtue of this deep evolutionary perspective, lamprey has served as a critical model for understanding the evolution of several conserved and derived features that are relevant to broad fields of biology and biomedicine. Studies have used lampreys to provide perspective on the evolution of developmental pathways that define vertebrate embryogenesis, vertebrate nervous and neuroendocrine systems, genome structure, immunity, clotting and others. These studies reveal aspects of vertebrate biology that have bee... [more]

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