Animal Biology Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards based on the lecture notes about animal biology, focusing on arthropods, chelicerates, mandibulates, and vertebrates.

Cuticle

The outer layer or exoskeleton of organisms like cicadas.

Chelicerates

A group of arthropods with about 114,000 species, including sea spiders and horseshoe crabs.

Sea Spiders/Pycnogonids

Aquatic chelicerates that live in marine environments and swim around using their long legs.

Carapace

The hard, light heart covering over a horseshoe crab's body.

Arachnids

A terrestrial group of chelicerates, including spiders, ticks, and mites, characterized by four pairs of walking legs.

Mandibulates

The larger group of arthropods, including myriapods and crustacea, characterized by jaws and sensory antenna.

Myriapoda

A group of mandibulates including centipedes and millipedes, the first animals to live in the terrestrial environment, known for having many legs.

Venom

Poison that centipedes use to hunt.

Toxic

Poisonous compounds that millipedes concentrate in their bodies for defense.

"Crustaceans"

Arthropods primarily aquatic animals include crabs, lobsters, crayfish and copepods.

Hexapods

A terrestrial group within the crustaceans characterized by having six legs and wings in most cases.

Pterygoats

The insects or ancient flyers, the first animals to evolve wings and fly.

Chordates

Chordates with dorsal hollow nerve cord, post anal tail and a notochord.

Notochord

A supportive rod in chordates, the precursor to an internal skeleton.

Ambulacrarians

A group including sea stars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers.

Cyclostomes

Fish with no jaws, such as hagfish and lampreys.

Gnathostomes

Vertebrates with hinged jaws.

Chondrichthyans

Vertebrates with a skeleton made of cartilage, including sharks and rays.

Swim Bladder/Lung

A structure that helps bony vertebrates maintain their position in the water column.

Bony Vertebrates

A group of vertebrates with a skeleton made of hard calcified bone.

Ray Finned Fishes

Bony vertebrates with fins connected by a series of sharp rays or spines.

Telost Fish

A group of ray finned fish with telescoping jaws and an operculum

Operculum

Structure that pumps water over gills.

Lobe Limbed Vertebrates

Bony vertebrates with a single bone connecting the front appendage to the body.

Tetrapods

The terrestrial animals descended from lobe limbed vertebrates, defined for having a neck, and a bone architecture of 'one, two, lots'.

Lungfish

Lobe limbed vertebrates, they are aquatic and have wormy like bodies with long wormy fins.

Amphibians

Tetrapods characterized for needing standing water to reproduce.

Amniotes

Tetrapods defined for having amniotic sacs.

Amnion

The amniotic sac.

Archosaur

A group of amniotes including crocodiles, birds and dinosaurs.

Bird

An amniote that is metabolically expensive with a four chamber heart, and lungs that move air in one direction.

Gestation

The incubation of an embryo before the birth of said embryo