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In many cases, spines are a defense mechanism that help protect the animal against potential predators. Because spines are sharp, they can puncture skin and inflict pain and damage which may cause the predator to avoid that species from that point on. The spine of some animals are capable of injecting venom. In the case of some large species of ...
Unlike other Cambrian animals, these groups had the basic vertebrate body plan: a notochord, rudimentary vertebrae, and a well-defined head and tail, but lacked jaws. [29] A vertebrate group of uncertain phylogeny, small eel-like conodonts , are known from microfossils of their paired tooth segments from the late Cambrian to the end of the ...
They have a rigid, usually spherical body bearing moveable spines, which give the class the name Echinoidea (from the Greek ἐχῖνος ekhinos 'spine'). [5] The name urchin is an old word for hedgehog, which sea urchins resemble; they have archaically been called sea hedgehogs.
Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million in total. Animals range in size from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs .
Echidnas are possibly named after Echidna, a creature from Greek mythology who was half-woman, half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. [citation needed] An alternative explanation is a confusion with Ancient Greek: ἐχῖνος, romanized: ekhînos, lit. 'hedgehog, sea urchin'. [5]
2. Acorn Woodpecker. These birds get their name from their unique habit of storing acorns in trees, which they use as a food source. Sometimes, they can store tens of thousands of them.
In other animals, the vertebrae take the same regional names except for the coccygeal – in animals with tails, the separate vertebrae are usually called the caudal vertebrae. [19] Because of the different types of locomotion and support needed between the aquatic and other vertebrates, the vertebrae between them show the most variation ...
It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum Vertebrata, i.e. vertebrates. Well-known phyla of invertebrates include arthropods, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms, flatworms, cnidarians, and sponges. The majority of animal species are invertebrates; one estimate puts the figure at 97%. [1]