48 V HAPTER ERTEBRATES.pdf

CHAPTER 48: VERTEBRATES CHAPTER SYNOPSIS The phylum Chordata includes the animals with which we are most familiar and most closely related. Their principal features are: a single, hollow, dorsal nerve cord; a flexible, dorsal notochord; pharyngeal slits; and a postanal tail. The most primitive chordates include tunicates and lancelets. Larval tunicates resemble primitive tadpoles and clearly possess all chordate characteristics. Adult tunicates are sessile, colonial organisms that secrete a cellulose tunic around themselves. They seemingly lack many of the expected characteristics. The lancelets are scaleless, fishlike marine organisms. They are filter feeders and create water currents via cilia on the anterior end of the gut. The subphylum Vertebrata is well-represented by marine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms. They possess a vertebral column, a dorsal nerve cord protected by the vertebrae and have a distinct skull that encloses the brain. Their circulatory and excretory systems are markedly different from all other animals. Vertebrates are divided into eight classes; four contain the aquatic fishes and four are terrestrial tetrapods. The class Myxini include the lampreys, and the class Cephalaspidomorphi includes the hagfish. Both are commonly labeled jawless fish and are often lumped into the superclass Agnatha. Both retain the notochord as adults and possess cartilaginous skeletons. Larval lampreys superficially resemble the lancelets, although they are more efficient feeders and create water currents via a muscular pharynx. The cartilaginous Chondrichthyes and the bony Osteichthyes are jawed fishes. The horizontal fins of the sharks and rays improve their swimming ability, forcing the buoyant animals downward in the water as they swim forward. Their skin is covered by small denticles from which teeth are derived. Bony fish possess a denser, less buoyant skeleton and have evolved a gas-filled swim bladder to help position themselves i