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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 ...
There are around 50,000 species of animals that have a vertebral column. [2] The human spine is one of the most-studied examples, as the general structure of human vertebrae is fairly typical of that found in other mammals, reptiles, and birds. The shape of the vertebral body does, however, vary somewhat between different groups of living species.
A neural spine sail is a large, flattish protrusion from the back of an animal formed of a sequence of extended vertebral spinous processes and associated tissues. Such structures are comparatively rare in modern animals, but have been identified in many extinct species of amphibians and amniotes. Paleontologists have proposed a number of ways ...
A skin-skeletal preparation Close-up of the last 5 millimetres (0.20 in) of a hedgehog spine (SEM microscopy) A hedgehog that feels threatened can roll into a tight ball. Hedgehogs roll into a tight spiny ball when threatened, tucking in the furry face, feet, and belly. [7] The hedgehog's back contains two large muscles that direct the quills.
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 ...
The word porcupine comes from the Latin porcus ' pig ' + spina ' spine, quill ', from Old Italian porcospino, ' thorn-pig '. [4] [5] A regional American name for the animal is quill-pig. [6] A baby porcupine is a porcupette. When born, a porcupette's quills are soft hair; they harden within a few days, forming the sharp quills of adults. [7]
The animal's spine has bony projections that mesh to form a strong yet flexible backbone. [4] The differences are especially pronounced in the lower back between the rib cage and hips. [ 5 ] The hero shrew has 11 lumbar vertebrae , in contrast to a typical mammal which has 5 such vertebrae.