Lophophorate Phyla

Lophophorate Phyla is a Browse By group of the Nature Atlas that gathers the animal phyla that feed with a lophophore, a crown of tentacles used to filter food from water, here the brachiopods, with their paired hard shells, and the phoronids, the horseshoe worms that build upright tubes. An entry belongs here when its own cited article states that the phylum has lophophores or belongs to the Lophophorata. It excludes the mollusks whose shells look similar and the bryozoans, which have their own group. The shared feeding organ is what ties these otherwise different animals together, so the group lets a reader compare the shell-bearing and tube-dwelling forms.