The kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped organs found in vertebrates. They are located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space, and in adult humans are about 12 centimetres in length. They receive blood from the paired renal arteries; blood exits into the paired renal veins. Each kidney is attached to a ureter, a tube that carries excreted urine to the bladder.
Vertebrates comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata, including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 69,963 species described. Vertebrates comprise such groups as the following:
Amniotes are a clade of tetrapod vertebrates that comprise sauropsids and synapsids. They are distinguished by a membrane (amnion) protecting the embryo and a lack of a larval stage. Because of this trait, amniotes lay eggs on land or retain them within the mother, unlike anamniotes, which typically lay eggs in water. Older sources, particularly before the 20th century, may refer to amniotes as "higher vertebrates" and anamniotes as "lower vertebrates", based on the antiquated idea of the evolutionary great chain of being. The term amniote comes from the Greek ἀμνίον amnion, "membrane surrounding the fetus", and earlier "bowl in which the blood of sacrificed animals was caught", from ἀμνός amnos, "lamb".
Fish anatomy is the study of the form or morphology of fish. It can be contrasted with fish physiology, which is the study of how the component parts of fish function together in the living fish. In practice, fish anatomy and fish physiology complement each other, the former dealing with the structure of a fish, its organs or component parts and how they are put together, such as might be observed on the dissecting table or under the microscope, and the latter dealing with how those components function together in living fish.
An egg is the organic vessel containing the zygote in which an embryo develops until it can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches. An egg results from fertilization of an egg cell. Most arthropods, vertebrates, and mollusks lay eggs, although some, such as scorpions, do not.
In animal anatomy, a cloaca, plural cloacae or cloacas, is the posterior orifice that serves as the only opening for the digestive, reproductive, and urinary tracts of many vertebrate animals. All amphibians, reptiles, birds, and a few mammals have this orifice, from which they excrete both urine and feces; this is in contrast to most placental mammals, which have two or three separate orifices for evacuation. Excretory openings with analogous purpose in some invertebrates are also sometimes referred to as cloacae. Mating through the cloaca is known as cloacal copulation, commonly referred to as cloacal kiss.
The genitourinary system, or urogenital system, are the organs of the reproductive system and the urinary system. These are grouped together because of their proximity to each other, their common embryological origin and the use of common pathways, like the male urethra. Also, because of their proximity, the systems are sometimes imaged together.
The allantois is a hollow sac-like structure filled with clear fluid that forms part of a developing amniote's conceptus. It helps the embryo exchange gases and handle liquid waste.
The development of the urinary system begins during prenatal development, and relates to the development of the urogenital system – both the organs of the urinary system and the sex organs of the reproductive system. The development continues as a part of sexual differentiation.
The mesonephros is one of three excretory organs that develop in vertebrates. It serves as the main excretory organ of aquatic vertebrates and as a temporary kidney in reptiles, birds, and mammals. The mesonephros is included in the Wolffian body after Caspar Friedrich Wolff who described it in 1759.
The primitive node is the organizer for gastrulation in most amniote embryos. In birds it is known as Hensen's node, and in amphibians it is known as the Spemann-Mangold organizer. It is induced by the Nieuwkoop center in amphibians, or by the posterior marginal zone in amniotes including birds.
Kidney development, or nephrogenesis, describes the embryologic origins of the kidney, a major organ in the urinary system. This article covers a 3 part developmental process that is observed in most reptiles, birds and mammals, including humans. Nephrogenesis is often considered in the broader context of the development of the urinary and reproductive organs.
Pronephros is the most basic of the three excretory organs that develop in vertebrates, corresponding to the first stage of kidney development. It is succeeded by the mesonephros, which in fish and amphibians remains as the adult kidney. In amniotes the mesonephros is the embryonic kidney and a more complex metanephros acts as the adult kidney. Once a more advanced kidney forms, the previous version typically degenerates by apoptosis or becomes part of the male reproductive system.
Intermediate mesoderm or intermediate mesenchyme is a narrow section of the mesoderm located between the paraxial mesoderm and the lateral plate of the developing embryo. The intermediate mesoderm develops into vital parts of the urogenital system, as well as the reproductive system.
Human embryonic development, or human embryogenesis, is the development and formation of the human embryo. It is characterised by the processes of cell division and cellular differentiation of the embryo that occurs during the early stages of development. In biological terms, the development of the human body entails growth from a one-celled zygote to an adult human being. Fertilisation occurs when the sperm cell successfully enters and fuses with an egg cell (ovum). The genetic material of the sperm and egg then combine to form a single cell called a zygote and the germinal stage of development commences. Embryonic development in the human, covers the first eight weeks of development; at the beginning of the ninth week the embryo is termed a fetus. Human embryology is the study of this development during the first eight weeks after fertilisation. The normal period of gestation (pregnancy) is about nine months or 40 weeks.
In amniote embryology, the hypoblast, is one of two distinct layers arising from the inner cell mass in the mammalian blastocyst, or from the blastodisc in reptiles and birds. The hypoblast gives rise to the yolk sac, which in turn gives rise to the chorion.
The anamniotes are an informal group comprising the fishes and the amphibians, the "lower vertebrates", which lay their eggs in water. They are distinguished from the amniotes, the "higher vertebrates", which lay their eggs on land or retain the fertilized egg within the mother.
A renal portal system is a portal venous system found in all living vertebrates except for hagfish, lampreys, and mammals. Its function is to supply blood to renal tubules when glomerular filtration is absent or downregulated.
The archinephros, or holonephros, is a primitive kidney that has been retained by the larvae of hagfish and some caecilians. A recent author has referred to this structure as "the hypothetical primitive kidney of ancestral vertebrates". In the earliest vertebrates, this structure potentially extended the entire length of the body and consisted of paired segmental structures which drained via a pair of archinephrenic ducts into the cloaca. The entire structure arises from the nephric ridge, which in higher animal embryos gives rise to nephrotomes and the pronephroi at around 4 weeks gestation in humans. The pronephroi are supplanted by mesonephroi and finally by definitive kidneys, the metanephroi, by around 5 weeks gestation. The archinephros is nonfunctional in humans and other mammals.
The kidney is a paired organ of the excretory system in vertebrates, which maintains the balance of water and electrolytes in the body (osmoregulation), filters the blood, removes metabolic waste products, and in many vertebrates also produces hormones and maintains blood pressure. In healthy vertebrates, the kidneys maintain homeostasis of extracellular fluid in the body. When the blood is being filtered, the kidneys form urine, which consists of water and excess or unnecessary substances, the urine is then excreted from the body through other organs, which in vertebrates, depending on the species, may include the ureter, urinary bladder, cloaca, and urethra.
