Chapter 1: The Diversity, Classification, and Evolution of Vertebrates

Question 1

What does Chondrichthyes mean?

Answer 1

Fish that have cartilaginous skeletons

Question 2

What species belong to the Chondrichthyes?

Answer 2

Sharks, Rays, skates, and Ratfishes

Question 3

Which animals are warm-blooded?

Answer 3

Mammals and birds

Question 4

What animals are cold-blooded?

Answer 4

Amphibians, reptiles, and fish

Question 5

What does the word “amnion” mean?

Answer 5

The innermost extra-embryonic membrane of amniotic that surround the embryo

Question 6

What species of vertebrates are Amniotes?

Answer 6

Mammals, birds, and reptiles

Question 7

What does Osteichthyes mean?

Answer 7

Bony fish

Question 8

What does “agnathan” mean?

Answer 8

Jawless vertebrates

Question 9

What species of vertebrates lack jaws?

Answer 9

Hagfishes and lampreys

Question 10

Define the term Synapomorphy

Answer 10

Shared characteristics

Question 11

Primitive is…?

Answer 11

What the ancestor had

Question 12

Derived is…?

Answer 12

What the descendant has

Question 13

What mammals belong to the monotremes?

Answer 13

Echidna and the duck-billed platypus

Question 14

What mammals belong to the marsupials?

Answer 14

Kangaroos, opossums, wombats… (etc)

Question 15

Define Cladistic

Answer 15

A classification system that is based on the branching sequences of evolution

Recognizes only groups of organisms that are related by common descent

Question 16

Amphibians

Answer 16

Salamanders, frogs, caecilians

Question 17

True or False

Amniotes are more terrestrial than non-amniotes?

Answer 17

True

Question 18

What do you need to be terrestrial?

Answer 18

An efficient system to

1) extract oxygen from the air and transport it via the circulatory system to the tissues
2) eliminate waste products while retaining water
3) keep body temperature stable as external temperature changes

Question 19

What species belong to the Sauropsid Amniotes?

Answer 19

Reptiles: turtles, tuataras, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, birds

Question 20

What species belong to the Synapsid Amniotes?

Answer 20

Mammals: monotremes (prototheria), marsupials (metatherians), and placentals (eutherians)

Question 21

Turtles (testudinia)

Answer 21

The only vertebrates with the shoulders (pectoral girdle) and hips (pelvic girdle) inside the ribs

Question 22

Alligators and crocodiles (crocodilia)

Answer 22

• These animals are in the same evolutionary lineage as dinosaurs and birds
• Their skin contains many bones (osteoderms) that act as armor

Question 23

What is a placenta?

Answer 23

A structure that transfers nutrients from the mother to the embryo and removes the waste products of the embryo’s metabolism

Question 24

True or false?

Placentals have a short gestation period

Answer 24

FALSE

They have a long gestation period while marsupials have a short gestation and give birth to very immature young that continue their development attached to a nipple

Question 25

Non-Amniotes

Answer 25

The embryo of non-amniotes are enclosed and protected by membranes that are produced by the reproductive tract of the female

Question 26

How are Hagfishes unique among vertebrates?

Answer 26

They lack many features that characterize most vertebrates (ex: they have no trace of vertebrae)

Question 27

Define systematics

Answer 27

The evolutionary classification of organisms

Question 28

What are two broad categories of bony fish?

Answer 28

Ray-finned fish (actinopterygians) Lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians)

Question 29

Define Phylogenetics

Answer 29

Phylogenetic's pertains to the development of an evolutionary lineage

Question 30

Define Characters

Answer 30

Characters are any identifiable characteristics of an organism. Characters can be anatomical, behavioral, ecological, or physiological

Question 31

What is a Cladogram?

Answer 31

A branching diagram representing the hypothesized relationships of taxa

Question 32

Define Taxon

Answer 32

Any scientifically recognized group of organisms united by common ancestry

Question 33

Define Parsimonious

Answer 33

In evolutionary biology, the hypothesis that requires the fewest changes from ancestral to derived character states

Question 34

What are the major groups of vertebrates?

Answer 34

1. Fish 2. Amphibians 3. Reptiles 4. Mammals 5. Birds