What are Velvet Worms?

Velvet Worm These worm-like animals evolved 300 million years ago and are characterized by pairs of feet and obesity. Descendants survive today in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and South America, and are terrestrial creatures.

Velvet Worm

Tussah silkworm is a very rare class of invertebrates, also known as velvet worms, slime worms, etc., belonging to the clawed animals. Living tussah silkworms include 186 species of 54 genera and 2 families (Peripatidae and Peripatopsidae), mainly distributed in tropical regions, including central Africa, the Malay Peninsula, central America, and Australia. There is no distribution in China. Tussah silkworm is mainly distributed intermittently in the southern hemisphere. It is a typical Gondwana ancient land group, and it also has a small number of species in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. ^[1]

The body structure of velvet worms is between worms and insects. For many years, scientists have considered velvet worms to be a "missing link" in the evolution of worms and insects. This view is further confirmed.

However, an analysis of the velvet's brain suggests that this "living fossil" may not

Velvet Worm

As old as imagined, it may just be the ancestors of crabs and spiders, not the lack of evolution of all arthropods. However, some scientists are skeptical of the findings. Georg Mayer, a zoologist at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, said, however, that the interpretation of these brain similarities seemed too hasty. Study of the pedigree.