Entoprocta
phylum of animals
Entoprocta (lit. 'inside rectum/anus'), or Kamptozoa , commonly called goblet worms, is a phylum of mostly-sessile aquatic animals, ranging from 0.1 to 7 millimetres (0.004 to 0.3 in) long. Mature individuals are goblet-shaped, on relatively long stalks. They have a "crown" of solid tentacles whose cilia generate water currents that draw food particles towards the mouth, and both the mouth and anus lie inside the "crown". The superficially similar Bryozoa (Ectoprocta) have the anus outside a "crown" of hollow tentacles. Most families of entoprocts are colonial, and all but 2 of the 150 species are marine. A few solitary species can move slowly.
Some species eject unfertilized ova into the water, while others keep their ova in brood chambers until they hatch, and some of these species use placenta-like organs to nourish the developing eggs. After hatching, the larvae swim for a short time and then settle on a surface. There they metamorphose, and the larval gut rotates by up to 180°, so that the mouth and anus face upwards. Both colonial and solitary species also reproduce by cloning — solitary species grow clones in the space between the tentacles and then release them when developed, while colonial ones produce new members from the stalks or from corridor-like stolons.
The public source identifies “Entoprocta” as phylum of animals. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Entoprocta, phylum and animals.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q208580. The Library of Congress control number is sh85044140. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Entoprocta” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.