26 June 2010

Chordata: All mammals are chordates. Mammals include such animals as humans, dogs, monkeys and so on. Vertebrae are something that is found in almost every living thing.

Chordates are well represented in the ocean, freshwater and the land, from the Equator to the high northern and southern latitudes of our earth. The smallest Chordates are about 1 cm in length when matured and the largest that have ever existed are some dinosaurs that reached more than 20 m but the Blue Whale are still with us and can grow to about 30m.

Chordates are active animals, well some of us are, with bilaterally symmetric bodies that are divided into a head, the body and the tail and the most distinctive feature of a chordate is the nerve cord, visceral cleft and arches.

At last something that we can relate to.