Definition of "vertebrata" []

• One of the grand divisions of the animal kingdom, comprising all animals that have a backbone composed of bony or cartilaginous vertebræ, together with Amphioxus in which the backbone is represented by a simple undivided notochord. The Vertebrata always have a dorsal, or neural, cavity above the notochord or backbone, and a ventral, or visceral, cavity below it. The subdivisions or classes of Vertebrata are Mammalia, Aves, Reptilia, Amphibia, Pisces, Marsipobranchia, and Leptocardia. (noun-plural)

Gnu Collaboartive International Dictionary of English: licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

• "Fish and fishermen are contained in vertebrata, while jawed fish and fishermen are contained in gnathostomata."
• "These characteristics place man inevitably among the so-called vertebrata; he is certainly not an invertebrate, nor is the basic structure of his body such that a third group, outside the invertebrata and vertebrata, can be made to include only the single type -- man."
• "Most of our readers know that it belongs to that one of two primary animal divisions which is called the vertebrata, and that the distinctive feature which place it in this division is the possession of a spinal column or backbone, really a series of small ring-like bones, the vertebrae (Figure 1 v.b.) strung together, as it were, on the main nerve axis, the spinal cord (Figure 1 s.c.)."