Vermes

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Vermes ("worms") is an obsolete taxon used by Carl Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for non-arthropod invertebrate animals.

Linnaeus

In Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, the Vermes had the rank of class, occupying the 6th (and last) slot of his animal systematics. It was divided into the following orders, all except the Lithophyta containing (in modern terms) organisms from a variety of phyla:^[1]

• Intestina, including
  roundworms, liver flukes, leeches, hagfishes, and shipworms
• Mollusca, including
  priapulids, salps, jellyfish, starfish, and sea urchins
• Testacea, including chitons, barnacles, clams, cockles, nautiluses, snails and serpulid worms
• Lithophyta, including various corals
• Zoophyta, including
  tapeworms, and Volvox

Apart from the

polychaetes

were spread across the other orders.

Lamarck

Linnaeus's system was revised by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in his 1801 Système des Animaux sans Vertebres. In this work, he categorized echinoderms, arachnids, crustaceans and annelids, which he separated from Vermes.^[2]

Modern

After Linnaeus, and especially with the advent of Darwinism, it became apparent that the Vermes animals are not closely related. Systematic works on phyla since Linnaeus continued to split up Vermes and sort the animals into natural systematic units.

Of the classes of Vermes proposed by Linnaeus, only

was revolutionary in its day. A number of the organisms classified as Vermes by Linnaeus were very poorly known, and a number of them were not even viewed as animals.

References