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Cyclostomata
Cyclostomi, often referred to as Cyclostomata , from Ancient Greek κύκλος (kúklos), meaning "circle", and στόμα (stóma), meaning "mouth", is a superclass of vertebrates that comprises the living jawless fish classes: the lampreys and hagfishes. Both groups have jawless mouths with horny epidermal structures that function as teeth called ceratodontes, and branchial arches that are internally positioned instead of external as in the related jawed fishes. The superclass was named by Joan Crockford-Beattie. Possible external relationships This taxon is often included in the paraphyletic infraphylum Agnatha, which also includes several groups of extinct armored fishes called ostracoderms. Most fossil agnathans, such as galeaspids, thelodonts, and osteostracans, are more closely related to vertebrates with jaws (called gnathostomes) than to cyclostomes. Biologists historically disagreed on whether cyclostomes are a clade. The "vertebrate hypothesis" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agnatha
Agnatha (; ) or jawless fish is a paraphyletic infraphylum of animals in the subphylum Vertebrata of the phylum Chordata, characterized by the lack of jaws. The group consists of both extant taxon, living (Cyclostomi, cyclostomes such as hagfishes and lampreys) and Extinction, extinct clades (e.g. conodonts and Cephalaspidomorphi, cephalaspidomorphs, among others). They are sister taxon, sister to vertebrates with jaws known as gnathostomes, who evolution, evolved from jawless ancestors during the early Silurian by developing folding joint, articulations in the first pairs of gill arches. Sequencing, Molecular data, both from rRNA and from mtDNA as well as Embryology, embryological data, strongly supports the hypothesis that both groups of living agnathans, hagfishes and lampreys, are more closely related to each other than to Gnathostomata, jawed fish, forming the Class (biology), superclass Cyclostomi. The oldest fossil agnathans appeared in the Cambrian. Living jawless fish c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lochkovian
The Lochkovian is one of three faunal stages in the Early Devonian Epoch. It lasted from 419.2 ± 3.2 million years ago to 410.8 ± 2.8 million years ago. It marked the beginning of the Devonian Period, and was followed by the Pragian Stage. It is named after the village of Lochkov in the Czech Republic, now part of the city of Prague. The GSSP is located within the Lochkow Formation at the Klonk Section in Prague. In North America the Lochkovian Stage is represented by Gedinnian or Helderbergian time. References Lochkovian, Early Devonian {{geochronology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ostracoderm
Ostracodermi () or ostracoderms is an informal group of vertebrate animals that include all armored jawless fish of the Paleozoic Era. The term does not often appear in classifications today because it is paraphyletic (excluding jawed fishes and possibly the cyclostomes if anaspids are closer to them) and thus does not correspond to one evolutionary lineage. However, the term is still used as an informal way of loosely grouping together the armored jawless fishes. An innovation of ostracoderms was the use of gills not for feeding, but exclusively for respiration. Earlier chordates with gill precursors used them for both respiration and feeding. Ostracoderms had separate pharyngeal gill pouches along the side of the head, which were permanently open with no protective operculum. Unlike invertebrates that use ciliated motion to move food, ostracoderms used their muscular pharynx to create a suction that pulled small and slow-moving prey into their mouths. Swiss anatomist L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thyroid
The thyroid, or thyroid gland, is an endocrine gland in vertebrates. In humans, it is a butterfly-shaped gland located in the neck below the Adam's apple. It consists of two connected lobes. The lower two thirds of the lobes are connected by a thin band of tissue called the isthmus (: isthmi). Microscopically, the functional unit of the thyroid gland is the spherical thyroid follicle, lined with follicular cells (thyrocytes), and occasional parafollicular cells that surround a lumen containing colloid. The thyroid gland secretes three hormones: the two thyroid hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4)and a peptide hormone, calcitonin. The thyroid hormones influence the metabolic rate and protein synthesis and growth and development in children. Calcitonin plays a role in calcium homeostasis. Secretion of the two thyroid hormones is regulated by thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), which is secreted from the anterior pituitary gland. TSH is regulated by thy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lancelet
The lancelets ( ), also known as amphioxi (: amphioxus ), consist of 32 described species of somewhat fish-like benthic filter feeding chordates in the subphylum Cephalochordata, class Leptocardii, and family Branchiostomatidae. Lancelets diverged from other chordates during or prior to the Cambrian period. A number of fossil chordates have been suggested to be closely related to lancelets, including ''Pikaia'' and ''Cathaymyrus'' from the Cambrian and ''Palaeobranchiostoma'' from the Permian, but their close relationship to lancelets has been doubted by other authors. Molecular clock analysis suggests that modern lancelets probably diversified much more recently, during the Cretaceous or Cenozoic. They are of interest to List of authors of names published under the ICZN, Zoologists as lancelets contain many organs and organ systems that are Homology (biology), homologous to those of modern fish. Therefore, they provide a number of examples of possible evolutionary exaptation. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunicate
Tunicates are marine invertebrates belonging to the subphylum Tunicata ( ). This grouping is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords (including vertebrates). The subphylum was at one time called Urochordata, and the term urochordates is still sometimes used for these animals. Despite their simple appearance and very different adult form, their close relationship to the vertebrates is certain. Both groups are chordates, as evidenced by the fact that during their mobile larval stage, tunicates possess a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, post-anal tail, and an endostyle. They resemble a tadpole. Tunicates are the only chordates that have lost their Myomere, myomeric segmentation, with the possible exception of the seriation of the gill slits. However, Doliolida, doliolids still display segmentation of the muscle bands. Some tunicates live as solitary individuals, but others replicate by budding and be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endostyle
The endostyle is an organ found in invertebrate chordate species of tunicates, lancelets, and in the larval stage of vertebrate lampreys. It assists in filter-feeding. It has evolved into the thyroid in vertebrate chordates. Since the endostyle is found in all three chordate lineages, it is presumed to have arisen in the common ancestor of these taxa, along with a shift to internal feeding for extracting suspended food particles from the water. When feeding, food particles suspended in the water adhere to the mucus the endostyle produces. The filtered water is then expelled through the gill slits, while the food and mucus are swept into the esophagus by movements of the cilia that coat the endostyle. The endostyle of larval lampreys ( ammocoetes) metamorphoses into the thyroid gland in adults, and is regarded as being homologous to the thyroid in other vertebrates due to its iodine-concentrating activity. One early hypothesis for the function of the endostyle, developed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth transformation or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some insects, jellyfish, fish, amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans, cnidarians, echinoderms, and tunicates undergo metamorphosis, which is often accompanied by a change of nutrition source or behavior. Animals can be divided into species that undergo complete metamorphosis (" holometaboly"), incomplete metamorphosis (" hemimetaboly"), or no metamorphosis (" ametaboly"). Generally organisms with a larval stage undergo metamorphosis, and during metamorphosis the organism loses larval characteristics. Etymology The word ''metamorphosis'' derives from Ancient Greek , "transformation, transforming", from ('), "after" and ('), "form". Hormonal control In insects, growth and metamorphosis are controlled by hormones synthesized by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontogeny
Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the ovum, egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the study of the entirety of an organism's lifespan. Ontogeny is the developmental history of an organism within its own lifetime, as distinct from phylogeny, which refers to the evolutionary history of a species. Another way to think of ontogeny is that it is the process of an organism going through all of the developmental stages over its lifetime. The developmental history includes all the developmental events that occur during the existence of an organism, beginning with the changes in the egg at the time of fertilization and events from the time of birth or hatching and afterward (i.e., growth, remolding of body shape, development of secondary sexual characteristics, etc.). While developmental (i.e., ontogenetic) processes can influen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lasanius
''Lasanius'' is a genus of basal jawless fish from the Early Silurian, around 443.8 million years ago, known from fossils found near Lesmahagow, Scotland. Specimens range from 13.3 to 74.5 mm in length. ''Lasianus'' has a pair of eyes, and a notochord, and while it has rows of bony scutes running along its back, it lacks the armour typical of other Paleozoic jawless fish like ostracoderms. There are also structures close to the front of the animal dubbed "chains" and "rods", of unclear function. At the end of the body a hypocercal tail fin was present in the form of a caudal lobe. Historically, it has often been allied with the anaspids, though other studies found it to be unrelated. A comprehensive redescription published in 2023 found that it was a stem-group cyclostome, more closely related to hagfish and lampreys than to jawed fish Gnathostomata (; from Ancient Greek: (') 'jaw' + (') 'mouth') are jawed vertebrates. Gnathostome diversity comprises roughly 60,000 s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anaspida
Anaspida ("shieldless ones") is an extinct group of jawless fish that existed from the early Silurian period to the late Devonian period. They were classically regarded as the ancestors of lampreys, but it is denied in recent phylogenetic analysis, although some analysis show these group would be at least related. Anaspids were small marine fish that lacked a heavy bony shield and paired fins, but were distinctively hypocercal. Anatomy Compared to many other ostracoderms, such as the Heterostraci and Osteostraci, anaspids did not possess a bony shield or armor, hence their name. The anaspid head and body are instead covered in an array of small, weakly mineralized scales, with a row of massive scutes running down the back, and, at least confirmed among the birkeniids, the body was covered in rows of tile-like scales made of aspidine, an acellular bony tissue. Anaspids all had prominent, laterally placed eyes with no sclerotic ring, with the gills opened as a row of holes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conodont
Conodonts, are an extinct group of marine jawless vertebrates belonging to the class Conodonta (from Ancient Greek κῶνος (''kōnos''), meaning " cone", and ὀδούς (''odoús''), meaning "tooth"). They are primarily known from their hard, mineralised tooth-like structures called "conodont elements" that in life were present in the oral cavity and used to process food. Rare soft tissue remains suggest that they had elongate eel-like bodies with large eyes. Conodonts were a long-lasting group with over 300 million years of existence from the Cambrian (over 500 million years ago) to the beginning of the Jurassic (around 200 million years ago). Conodont elements are highly distinctive to particular species and are widely used in biostratigraphy as indicative of particular periods of geological time. Discovery and understanding of conodonts The teeth-like fossils of the conodont were first discovered by Heinz Christian Pander and the results published in Saint Petersburg, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
