Soft-bodied organisms are organisms that lack rigid physical skeletons or frame, roughly corresponds to the group Vermes as proposed by Carl von Linné. The term typically refers to non-panarthropod invertebrates from the kingdom Animalia, although many non-vascular plants (mosses and algae), fungi (such as jelly fungus), lichens and slime molds can also be seen as soft-bodied organisms by definition.
All animals have a muscular system of some sort but, since myocytes are tensile actuator units that can only contract and pull but never push, some animals evolved rigid body parts upon which the muscles can attach and act as levers/cantilevers to redirect force and produce locomotive propulsion. These rigid parts also serve as structural elements to resist gravity and ambient pressure, as well as sometimes provide protective surfaces shielding internal structures from trauma and exposure to external thermal, chemical and pathogenic insults. Such physical structures are the commonly referred "skeletons", which may be internal (as in vertebrates, echinoderms and sponges) or external (as in arthropods and non-coleoid molluscs). However, many soft-bodied animals do still have a functional skeleton maintained by body fluid hydrostatics known as a hydroskeleton, such as that of earthworms, jellyfish, tapeworms, squids and an enormous variety of invertebrates from almost every phyla of the animal kingdom; and many have hardened teeth that allow them to chew, bite and burrow despite the rest of body being soft.
