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The name "chordate" comes from the first of these synapomorphies, the notochord, which plays a significant role in chordate body plan structuring and movements. Chordates are also bilaterally symmetric, have a coelom, possess a closed circulatory system, and exhibit metameric segmentation.
Segmentation in biology is the division of some animal and plant body plans into a linear series of repetitive segments that may or may not be interconnected to each other. This article focuses on the segmentation of animal body plans, specifically using the examples of the taxa Arthropoda, Chordata, and Annelida. These three groups form ...
The dorsal nerve cord serves as a hollow-like backbone where signals are sent throughout the body due to nervous tissue being located in this region. [2] The notochord is also toward the tail of the chordate but closer toward the middle of the body than the dorsal nerve cord and is a water-filled structure that allows the chordate to move in ...
The notochord is the defining feature (synapomorphy) of chordates, and was present throughout life in many of the earliest chordates. Although the stomochord of hemichordates was once thought to be homologous or from a common lineal origin, it is now viewed as analogous, convergent , or from a different lineal origin. [ 22 ]
Like all other chordates, tunicates have a notochord during their early development, but it is lost by the time they have completed their metamorphosis. As members of the Chordata, they are true Coelomata with endoderm, ectoderm, and mesoderm, but they do not develop very clear coelomic body cavities, if any at all.
A true endoskeleton is derived from mesodermal tissue. In three phyla of animals, Chordata, Echinodermata and Porifera (), endoskeletons of various complexity are found.An endoskeleton may function purely for structural support (as in the case of Porifera), but often also serves as an attachment site for muscles and a mechanism for transmitting muscular forces as in chordates and echinoderms ...
This article contains a list of all of the classes and orders that are located in the Phylum Chordata. The subphyla Tunicata and Vertebrata are in the unranked Olfactores clade, while the subphylum Cephalochordata is not. Animals in Olfactores are characterized as having a more advanced olfactory system than animals not in it.
The circulatory system carries food throughout their body, but does not have red blood cells or hemoglobin for transporting oxygen. Lancelet genomes hold clues about the early evolution of vertebrates: by comparing genes from lancelets with the same genes in vertebrates, changes in gene expression, function and number as vertebrates evolved can ...