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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 ...
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]
Vertebrae articulate with each other to give strength and flexibility to the spinal column, and the shape at their back and front aspects determines the range of movement. Structurally, vertebrae are essentially alike across the vertebrate species, with the greatest difference seen between an aquatic animal and other vertebrate animals. As such ...
“Thanks for being transparent,” one person told the zoo in California.
The vertebrae interlock on their sides and lower surfaces. 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.