lobopod, collective name for two phyla of animals: Onychophora and Tardigrada. Phyla Onychophora and Tardigrada have long been considered separate from their close arthropod relatives. Both groups have similar paired locomotory appendages, called lobopodia (or lobopods); a body cavity (hemocoel); a cuticle (skin) secreted by surface cells and shed periodically (molting); a gut that is usually a straight tube; and separate sexes and gonads. The groups also differ: only the onychophorans have well-developed organ systems; those of tardigrades are reduced or lacking. The groups are of interest chiefly because they bear strong resemblances to primitive annelidan forms as well as to the phylum Arthropoda (e.g., insects, crustaceans)—the most highly evolved invertebrates. Like arthropods, both onychophorans and tardigrades periodically molt an external cuticle, and lobopods and arthropods are sometimes grouped together as the Panarthropoda.
The evolution of lobopods, as of other very old groups with few or no fossils, is a speculative subject, on which no consensus has yet been reached. Lobopods, as well as arthropods, originated in Precambrian times from marine, bottom-dwelling forms that may also have been ancestral to modern annelids. The acquisition of lobopodia may have led to the dissolution of separate coelomic compartments and to the formation of a hemocoel; it may also have permitted the development of a firmer cuticle, leading to the evolution of molting. The development of the cuticle also led to the loss of external cilia.
Tardigrades evolved toward small size, with a consequent simplification of body organization. Some of their primitive characteristics—e.g., the cuticle of protein, the brain, and the absence of specialized legs on the head—suggest that their ancestors diverged very early from the oncopod-arthropod stem. Tardigrades show interesting similarities to some aschelminths (roundworms).
The formation of a strong “skeleton” under a soft epidermis is a characteristic of onychophoran evolution and permits the body to be deformed. Among lobopods, onychophorans have the most extensive combinations of primitive features—e.g., structure of nerve cords, persistence of cilia, smooth muscles—with annelid-like characters or basic arthropodan characters (e.g., chitin and molting, hemocoel, gonads, embryonic development) or both. They also developed specializations of their own (e.g., dermis, tracheae, viviparity). According to some authorities, the lobopods may have been the evolutionary source of appendages in annelids and arthropods. See also onychophoran; tardigrade.