Related topics: species

Do octopuses, squid and crabs have emotions?

Octopuses can solve complex puzzles and show a preference for different individuals, but whether they, and other animals and invertebrates, have emotions is being hotly debated and could shake up humans' moral decision-making, ...

Fossil of giant ancient sea predator discovered (w/ video)

Paleontologists have discovered that a group of remarkable ancient sea creatures existed for much longer and grew to much larger sizes than previously thought, thanks to extraordinarily well-preserved fossils discovered in ...

Scientists help decode mysterious green glow of the sea

Many longtime sailors have been mesmerized by the dazzling displays of green light often seen below the ocean surface in tropical seas. Now researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have uncovered ...

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Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals).

Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group. Given a common multicellular, eukaryotic ancestor, all contained phyla are invertebrates along with two of the three subphyla in Phylum Chordata: Tunicata and Cephalochordata. These two, plus all the other known invertebrates, have only one cluster of Hox genes, while the vertebrates have duplicated their original cluster more than once.

Within palaeozoology and palaeobiology, invertebrates are often studied within the fossil discipline called invertebrate palaeontology.

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