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Hagfish form a class of about 20 species of eel-shaped, slime-producing marine fish. They are the only known living animals that have a skull but no vertebral column. Lampreys form a superclass containing 38 known extant species of jawless fish. [3] The adult lamprey is characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth.
The vertebrates include mammals, birds, amphibians, and various classes of fish and reptiles. The fish include the jawless Agnatha, and the jawed Gnathostomata. The jawed fish include both the cartilaginous fish and the bony fish. Bony fish include the lobe-finned fish, which gave rise to the tetrapods, the animals with four
Today, the 5,500 species of living synapsids, known as the mammals, include both aquatic and flying species, and the largest animal ever known to have existed (the blue whale). Humans are synapsids, as well. Most mammals are viviparous and give birth to live young rather than laying eggs with the exception being the monotremes.
While today's blue whale has long held the title, scientists have dug up fossils from an ancient giant that could tip the scales. ... 13 vertebrae from the whale’s backbone, four ribs and a hip ...
Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment. Only about 100 of the 12,000 extant reptile species and subspecies are classed as marine reptiles, including marine iguanas , sea snakes , sea turtles and saltwater crocodiles .
Osteichthyes (bone-fish) or bony fishes are a taxonomic group of fish that have bone, as opposed to cartilaginous skeletons. The vast majority of fish are osteichthyans, which is an extremely diverse and abundant group consisting of 45 orders, with over 435 families and 28,000 species. [21] It is the largest class of vertebrates in existence today.
Image credits: unusuals86 Called lunge feeding, it allows blue whales to consume a large amount of food at a time, providing the nutrients and energy needed to reach such enormous size.
Blue whales have returned to a part of the Indian Ocean where the species was once wiped out by whaling decades ago. Researchers in the Seychelles have captured footage of the marine mammals in ...