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Vertebrates are deuterostomal animals with bony or cartilaginous axial endoskeleton — known as the vertebral column, spine or backbone — around and along the spinal cord, including all fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The vertebrates consist of all the taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata and represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 69,963 species described.
A tetrapod is any four-limbed vertebrate animal of the superclass Tetrapoda. Tetrapods include all extant and extinct amphibians and amniotes, with the latter in turn evolving into two major clades, the sauropsids and synapsids. Some tetrapods, such as snakes, legless lizards, and caecilians, have evolved to become limbless via mutations of the Hox gene. Nevertheless, these limbless groups still qualify as tetrapods through their ancestry, and some retain a pair of vestigial spurs that are remnants of the hindlimbs.
Amniotes are tetrapod vertebrate animals belonging to the clade Amniota, a large group that comprises the vast majority of living terrestrial and semiaquatic vertebrates. Amniotes evolved from amphibian ancestors during the Carboniferous period and further diverged into two groups, namely the sauropsids and synapsids, an event that marks the appearance of Amniota, according to the definition established under the PhyloCode. This basal divergence within Amniota has been dated by molecular studies at 310–329 Ma or 312–330 Ma, but the presence of Hylonomus at Joggins implies a minimal age of about 317 Ma. A fossilized birth-death process study of early amniotes suggested an age of 322–340 Ma. Amniotes are distinguished from the other living tetrapod clade — the non-amniote lissamphibians — by the development of three extraembryonic membranes, thicker and keratinized skin, and costal respiration. Additional unique features are the presence of adrenocortical and chromaffin tissues as a discrete pair of glands near their kidneys, which are more complex, the presence of an astragalus for better extremity range of motion, the diminished role of skin breathing, and the complete loss of metamorphosis, gills, and lateral lines.
Vertebrate paleontology is the subfield of paleontology that seeks to discover, through the study of fossilized remains, the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct vertebrates. It also tries to connect, by using the evolutionary timeline, the animals of the past and their modern-day relatives.
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches.
A cloaca, pl.: cloacae, is the rear 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 and reproduction. Excretory openings with analogous purpose in some invertebrates are also sometimes called cloacae. Mating through the cloaca is called cloacal copulation and cloacal kissing.
Heinrich Kuhl was a German naturalist and zoologist.
Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix was a German biologist. From his expedition to Brazil, he brought to Germany a large variety of specimens of plants, insects, mammals, birds, amphibians and fish. They constitute an important basis for today's National Zoological Collection in Munich. Numerous examples of his ethnographic collections, such as dance masks and the like, are now part of the collection of the Museum of Ethnography in Munich.
Axel Johann Einar Lönnberg was a Swedish zoologist and conservationist. Lönnberg was born in Stockholm. He was head of the Vertebrate Department of the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet from 1904 to 1933.
Marcos Jiménez de la Espada (1831–1898) was a Spanish zoologist, herpetologist, explorer and writer, born in Cartagena, Spain, although he spent most of his life in Madrid, where he died. He is known for participating in the Pacific Scientific Commission, with whom he traveled America from 1862 to 1865. He also published several works on geography and history of the American continent.
Joseph Grinnell was an American field biologist and zoologist. He made extensive studies of the fauna of California, and is credited with introducing a method of recording precise field observations known as the Grinnell System. He served as the first director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley from the museum's inception in 1908 until his death.
The mouth is the body orifice through which many animals ingest food and vocalize. The body cavity immediately behind the mouth opening, known as the oral cavity, is also the first part of the alimentary canal, which leads to the pharynx and the gullet. In tetrapod vertebrates, the mouth is bounded on the outside by the lips and cheeks — thus the oral cavity is also known as the buccal cavity — and contains the tongue on the inside. Except for some groups like birds and lissamphibians, vertebrates usually have teeth in their mouths, although some fish species have pharyngeal teeth instead of oral teeth.
Marine vertebrates are vertebrates that live in marine environments. These are the marine fish and the marine tetrapods. Vertebrates are a subphylum of chordates that have a vertebral column (backbone). The vertebral column provides the central support structure for an internal skeleton. The internal skeleton gives shape, support, and protection to the body and can provide a means of anchoring fins or limbs to the body. The vertebral column also serves to house and protect the spinal cord that lies within the column.
Arthur Loveridge was a British biologist and herpetologist who wrote about animals in East Africa, particularly Tanzania, and New Guinea. He gave scientific names to several gecko species in the region.
The Paleozoological Museum of China is a museum in Beijing, China. The same building also houses the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The museum contains exhibition halls with specimens aimed at the public, while the rest of the building is used for research purposes.
The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology is a natural history museum at the University of California, Berkeley. The museum was founded by philanthropist Annie Montague Alexander in 1908. Alexander recommended zoologist Joseph Grinnell as museum director, a position he held until his death in 1939.
A zoological specimen is an animal or part of an animal preserved for scientific use. Various uses are: to verify the identity of a (species), to allow study, increase public knowledge of zoology. Zoological specimens are extremely diverse. Examples are bird and mammal study skins, mounted specimens, skeletal material, casts, pinned insects, dried material, animals preserved in liquid preservatives, and microscope slides. Natural history museums are repositories of zoological specimens
Le Règne Animal is the most famous work of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. It sets out to describe the natural structure of the whole of the animal kingdom based on comparative anatomy, and its natural history. Cuvier divided the animals into four embranchements, namely vertebrates, molluscs, articulated animals, and zoophytes.
Robert Cyril Stebbins was an American herpetologist and illustrator known for his field guides and popular books as well as his studies of reptiles and amphibians. His Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians, first published in 1966, is still considered the definitive reference of its kind, owing to both the quality of the illustrations and the comprehensiveness of the text. A professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, for over 30 years, he was the first curator of herpetology at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, a 1949 Guggenheim fellow, and author of over 70 scientific articles. His discovery of the ring species phenomenon in Ensatina salamanders is now a textbook example of speciation, and he performed extensive research on the parietal eye of reptiles. He produced nature films, supported science education in primary grades, and organized conservation efforts that aided in the passing of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. After retirement he continued to paint, collect field notes, and write books. Stebbins is commemorated in the scientific names of three species: Batrachoseps stebbinsi, the Tehachapi slender salamander; Anniella stebbinsi, a legless lizard; and Ambystoma tigrinum stebbinsi, the endangered Sonora tiger salamander.
The Hasanbey Zardabi Natural History Museum is a natural history museum in Baku, Azerbaijan.
References
- ↑ Star, Susan Leigh (August 1989). "Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology". Social Studies of Science. 19 (3): 387–420. doi:10.1177/030631289019003001. JSTOR 285080.
