Practice question

Asteroidean indirect development produces characteristic bipinnaria larva, free-swimming bilaterally symmetrical with preoral and postoral ciliated bands for locomotion and particle capture, complete gut with mouth and anus. Auricularia larva corresponds to Holothuroidea, echinopluteus with long calcareous rods to Echinoidea and ophiopluteus to Ophiuroidea, indicating class-specific larval morphology. Bipinnaria later develops brachiolar arms becoming brachiolaria larva which attaches before metamorphosis. Larval terminology provides taxonomic marker within Echinodermata, linking embryology to adult classification and illustrating enterocoelous deuterostome developmental pattern conserved across the phylum.