vertebrate

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vertebrate Animal with individual discs of bone or cartilage called vertebra, which surround or replace the embryonic notochord to form a jointed backbone enclosing the spinal column. The principal division within vertebrates is between fish and partly land-adapted forms (amphibians), and the wholly land-adapted forms (reptiles, birds, and mammals, although some mammals, such as whales, adapted to a totally aquatic existence). Phylum Chordata; subphylum Vertebrata.

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