There are lots of vertebrates in the animal kingdom. Vertebrates are animals that have a backbone inside their body. The major groups include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

All vertebrate embryos follow a common developmental path due to their common ancestry. All have a set of very similar genes (the homeobox genes) that define their basic body plan. As they grow ...

Scientists found that evolution led bird and mammal brains to evolve separately, using different genetic instructions.

What determines the lifelong regenerative capacity of some animal lineages ? How the developmental program has evolved to generate the impressive morphological diversity of organs and tissues across ...

and other chordate animals. Form, function and evolutionary drivers of body systems in vertebrate animals are examined, especially in practical work. Evidence for evolution is emphasised in ...

"Retroviruses were required for vertebrate evolution to take ... nothing is known about how they might have helped animals ...

Legacy bird and mammal specimens also do not have tissues specifically preserved for DNA, but do include dried specimen skin, hair, and feathers. New collections (since 2007) by the Vertebrate curator ...

Figure 2: Relationships among animal phyla and subphyla with direct bearing on the origins of V(D)J recombination in jawed vertebrates. Figure 3: Evolutionary co-option of ancient biological ...