A student observes a wormlike organism crawling about on dead organic matter. Later, the organism sheds its outer covering. One possibility is that the organism is a larval insect (like a maggot). However, it might be a member of the phylum , and one way to distinguish between the two possibilities is by looking for .

Question

A student observes a wormlike organism crawling about on dead organic matter. Later, the organism sheds its outer covering. One possibility is that the organism is a larval insect (like a maggot). However, it might be a member of the phylum ________, and one way to distinguish between the two possibilities is by looking for ________.