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Vertebrata - LoveToKnow 1911 |
 | | VERTEBRATA, a large branch of the animal kingdom, of which the characteristic members are mammals, birds, reptiles, batrachians, fish and cyclostomes, the craniate vertebrates of modern zoology. |
 | | In some creatures, such as sturgeons and lampreys, the position of the jointed vertebral column is occupied by an unjointed rod, the so-called notochord, whilst all the Vertebrata pass through an embryonic stage in which a similar elastic unjointed notochord exists as the precursor of the jointed column. |
 | | They differ from the Cephalochordata in the extreme cephalization of the anterior segments of the body, including the formation of an enlarged brain with paired sense organs, the nose, eyes and auditory apparatus, and the formation of a cranium, and in the structure of the skeleton, heart, liver and organs of excretion and reproduction. |
| www.1911encyclopedia.org /Vertebrata (3842 words) |
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