vertebrates
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Human beings are vertebrates.
The five traditional class es of vertebrates are amphibians, birds, fishes, mammals, and reptiles. (Compare invertebrates.)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Tetrapods are vertebrates with limbs, including humans, that eventually made the transition from water to life on land.
From Science Daily • Mar. 12, 2026
"This means that across vertebrates, there may be twice as many species as we previously thought, and many of these hidden species could already be at risk of extinction."
From Science Daily • Mar. 3, 2026
"It shows that experimentation with herbivory goes all the way back to the earliest terrestrial tetrapods -- the ancient relatives of all land vertebrates, including us."
From Science Daily • Feb. 11, 2026
Lampreys represent one of the earliest branches of vertebrates, helping researchers pinpoint when key genetic changes first appeared.
From Science Daily • Feb. 4, 2026
The body plans of vertebrates depend on this property: if hemoglobin’s capacity to deliver oxygen to distant sites was disrupted, our bodies would be forced to be small and cold.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
