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World Nemertea Database
Citable as data publication
Norenburg, J.; Gibson, R.; Herrera Bachiller, A.; Strand, M. (2024). World Nemertea Database. Accessed at https://www.marinespecies.org/nemertea on yyyy-mm-dd. https://doi.org/10.14284/459

Access data
Dedicated website
Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Description
A world checklist of Nemertea, compiled by taxonomic experts and based on peer-reviewed literature. more

Approximately 1300 valid, described species of the phylum Nemertea, or ribbonworms, are known worldwide, inhabiting oceans, freshwaters, and land. Current field-work suggests that at least several times this number remain to be named or discovered. Nemerteans are unsegmented worms characterized by a unique and remarkable eversible proboscis. Some are colorful, while others are drab. They range from one millimeter to more than 30 meters long. Some are highly specialized predators while others are more eclectic, with diets that favor other worms, crustaceans, and mollusks. They are poorly known to non-specialists, because most nemerteans live in concealment and are difficult to collect, and because traditional taxonomy focuses significantly on internal anatomy based on histological study, while now we use genetic data extensively. However, many are common, abundant and can be key predators, while the phylum itself is important to understanding evolution of early invertebrate body plans. This site is intended to make these worms less enigmatic. The emphasis is on taxonomy, but the intent is to accommodate all aspects of nemertean biology.

Scope
Themes:
Biology, Biology > Ecology - biodiversity, Biology > Invertebrates
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, Fresh water, Brackish water, Terrestrial, Classification, Marine invertebrates, Species, Taxonomy, World Waters, Nemertea

Geographical coverage
World Waters [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
From 1758 on [In Progress]

Taxonomic coverage
Nemertea [WoRMS]

Parameters
Taxonomy

Contributors
Artois, Tomtaxonomic editor
Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), moredatabase developer
Norenburg, Jondata managertaxonomic editordata creator
Gibson, Raymondtaxonomic editordata creator
Herrera Bachiller, Alfonsotaxonomic editordata creator
Strand, Malintaxonomic editordata creator

Related datasets
Published in:
WoRMS: World Register of Marine Species, more

Dataset status: In Progress
Data type: Data
Data origin: Literature research
Metadatarecord created: 2013-04-22
Information last updated: 2024-01-11
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy
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