Velvet Worm Genome Project


Velvet worm

Velvet Worm

Source: Michael Pfrender

Velvet Worm (Euperipatoides rowelli)

Contact: Georg Mayer

Researchers involved:
Size (or size of nearest relative):

Keywords (and why important): Phylogenomics, body plan evolution, EvoDevo.

Onychophorans or "velvet worms" are close relatives of arthropods and, therefore, of pivotal importance for understanding the evolution of arthropods.

Extant onychophorans share ancestral features with the Early Cambrian lobopodians, such as unjointed limbs, simple ocellus-like eyes, and a soft body without an exoskeleton. Notably, the segmentation and regionalization of the body is also less advanced in these animals as compared to arthropods. Hence, analyzing the entire genome of the “model onychophoran” Euperipatoides rowelli will provide insights into the evolution of Panarthropoda (Onychophora, Tardigrada, and Arthropoda).

The species is easily accessible and a number of transcriptomic studies are currently in progress.

Related Video

Watch video of the velvet worm on YouTube.

Genomic Resources


For the most current version of the assembly, please use 'NCBI BioProject' (find link below). If the assembly is unavailable in the BioProject page (it is still being worked on), you can look under the 'BCM-HGSC data' (find link below) for intermediate versions of the assembly.


BCM-HGSC data

BCM-HGSC FTP site help

BCM-HGSC conditions of use

NCBI BioProject: Euperipatoides rowelli genome sequencing

Additional Resources

Learn more about the velvet worm