vertebrate
having vertebrae; having a backbone or spinal column.
belonging or pertaining to the Vertebrata (or Craniata), a subphylum of chordate animals, comprising those having a brain enclosed in a skull or cranium and a segmented spinal column; a major taxonomic group that includes mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes.
a vertebrate animal.
Origin of vertebrate
1Other words from vertebrate
- non·ver·te·brate, adjective, noun
- sub·ver·te·brate, noun, adjective
- un·ver·te·brate, adjective
Words Nearby vertebrate
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use vertebrate in a sentence
Indigenous lands in Canada, Brazil and Australia had similar, or slightly higher, levels of vertebrate diversity than non-Indigenous protected areas in the same countries.
Can people protect as much space as nature needs? | Jonathan Lambert | January 21, 2021 | Science News For Students“I don´t know of papers that have reported on traps built by spiders specifically for capturing vertebrates.”
These spiders may sew leaves into fake shelters to lure frogs to their doom | Jake Buehler | January 4, 2021 | Science NewsConverting these largely natural habitats, collectively about the size of India, would squeeze more than 17,000 vertebrate species from some of their lands, researchers report December 21 in Nature Sustainability.
Clearing land to feed a growing human population will threaten thousands of species | Jonathan Lambert | December 21, 2020 | Science NewsThe researchers analyzed 14,000 vertebrate populations across the world and found that previously accepted worldwide declines in wildlife could be attributed to a few outlier populations.
Wildlife conservation works, and vertebrates have the numbers to prove it | Rachael Zisk | December 1, 2020 | Popular-ScienceAdditionally, the group of biologists from the Natural History Museum in London found that frogs have the biggest eyes of any vertebrate animal in relation to their body size.
What hundreds of pickled frog carcasses can tell us about their enormous eyes | María Paula Rubiano A. | October 1, 2020 | Popular-Science
Then in the Cambrian era, around 570 million years ago, recognizably complex animal life evolved, including vertebrate ancestors.
Why Did It Take So Long For Complex Life To Evolve On Earth? Blame Oxygen. | Matthew R. Francis | November 2, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTSome 28 percent of the vertebrate species red-listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature live there.
It's so typical of everything we've seen of this semi-vertebrate.
Two other structures common to most of the vertebrate animals exist in man, though they render him little or no service.
Man And His Ancestor | Charles MorrisIt is a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasnt any wings and is uncertain.
A Horse's Tale | Mark TwainPlantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasnt any wings and is uncertain.
A Horse's Tale | Mark TwainThe vertebrate animals deserve more of our attention than other forms of life because man himself is a vertebrate.
A Civic Biology | George William HunterThe illustration here given shows the effect of nicotine upon a fish, one of the vertebrate animals.
A Civic Biology | George William Hunter
British Dictionary definitions for vertebrate
/ (ˈvɜːtɪˌbreɪt, -brɪt) /
any chordate animal of the subphylum Vertebrata, characterized by a bony or cartilaginous skeleton and a well-developed brain: the group contains fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
of, relating to, or belonging to the subphylum Vertebrata
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for vertebrate
[ vûr′tə-brĭt, -brāt′ ]
Any of a large group of chordates of the subphylum Vertebrata (or Craniata), characterized by having a backbone. Vertebrates are bilaterally symmetrical and have an internal skeleton of bone or cartilage, a nervous system divided into brain and spinal cord, and not more than two pairs of limbs. Vertebrates have a well-developed body cavity (called a coelom) containing a chambered heart, large digestive organs, liver, pancreas, and paired kidneys, and their blood contains both red and white corpuscles. Vertebrates include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Browse