Definition of "amniote" []

• Any of a group of vertebrates that have an amnion during embryonic development, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Impedance matching of the tympanic middle ear occurred very early in amniote evolution."
• "Mammary glands evolved in the mammalian lineage after mammals and frogs split from their amniote ancestor."
• "It was reasonable to assume that these mechanisms would account for embryo elongation, but the actual processes were unknown before the experiments of Bénazéraf and colleagues "A random cell motility gradient downstream of FGF controls elongation of an amniote embryo," Nature 8 July"