Chordata
Chordata
EOL Text
Fluid lubricates joints: vertebrates
Joints of vertebrates are protected by use of a lubricant, synovial fluid.
"Whereas technology tries to polish the hard metal of bearings to as fine a finish as possible, nature covers the touching surfaces with a spongelike substance which is comparatively stiff yet quite elastic: cartilaginous tissue, which differs from hard bone tissue essentially in that it lacks deposits of calcium crystals. One could compare this tissue to fiberglass from which the fibers have been removed. The fine pores of the cartilaginous sliding layer are soaked through with lubricating synovial fluid. When the joint is subjected to pressure, the layer compresses and the fluid is pushed out of the thin ducts. The gliding principle is the same as the one used for air-cushion vehicles, with the difference that in bone bearings the cushion (of fluid) is produced on the spot…Synovial fluid might also compete in the market with modern lubricants. It contains slightly less protein than blood serum, but on the other hand it carries an organic acid with very long molecules which are probably linked to proteins. The more the gliding speeds vary in the lubrication layer, the lower the viscosity of the fluid." (Tributsch 1984:41-42)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Tributsch, H. 1984. How life learned to live. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 218 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/b31fcaf863ab8a6993688ab36af96ddb |
Gills exchange oxygen efficiently: fish
The gills of fish remove oxygen from water with extreme efficiency because water flows countercurrent to capillary blood flow.
"Water flow over the secondary lamellae is countercurrent to capillary blood flow, resulting in extremely efficient oxygen extraction. Gills also function in monovalent ion regulation (via specialized chloride cells) and nitrogenous waste excretion (ammonia)." (Fowler and Miller 2003:4)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Fowler, ME; Miller, RE. 2003. Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/515d26afd79fabb79e58d605a3ef9e4d |
Cells manage monovalent ions: fish
The gills of fish manage monovalent ion concentrations via specialized chloride cells.
"Water flow over the secondary lamellae is countercurrent to capillary blood flow, resulting in extremely efficient oxygen extraction. Gills also function in monovalent ion regulation (via specialized chloride cells) and nitrogenous waste excretion (ammonia)." (Fowler and Miller 2003:4)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Fowler, ME; Miller, RE. 2003. Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/3cf8a5101d29a968771331ec586fee06 |
Tendons and bones form seamless attachment: Chordates
The attachment of tendons and bones is a strong and smooth transition due to the same fibre material spanning a gradual transition of mineralization.
"In addition, architects can learn from connections and transitions between systems and subsystems of biological entities. In the building sector, connections between parts and elements are almost always discontinuous and articulated as dividing seams, instead of a smoother transition in materiality and thus functionality (such as can be seen in the way tendon and bone connect, deploying the same fibre material yet across a smooth transition of mineralisation). The understanding and deployment of gradient thresholds in materiality and environmental conditions can yield the potential for complex performance capacities of material systems. This will require a detailed understanding of the relation between material makeup and resultant behavioural characteristics." (Courtesy of the Biomimicry Guild)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/330fb27d072f21914e0e3090f804c7a6 |
Highly effective swimming: fish
Fish have effective maneuverability, braking, stability and thrust thanks to multiple fins.
"By flexing the pectoral and caudal fins the fish can turn up, down, or sideways. The pectoral fins are also used as brakes, being pushed forwards like the flaps on an aircraft wing. The positions of the paired fins, especially the pelvic fins, are constantly adjusted to keep the fish from pitching or rolling: the pectorals tend to produce lift, which is counteracted by the downward thrust of the pelvics." (Foy and Oxford Scientific Films 1982:186)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Foy, Sally; Oxford Scientific Films. 1982. The Grand Design: Form and Colour in Animals. Lingfield, Surrey, U.K.: BLA Publishing Limited for J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd, Aldine House, London. 238 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/18d3179f1b27112f06ef4c07d4938dc0 |
Eggs are buoyant: oviparous fish
The eggs of many fish are buoyant due to the presence of discrete oil droplets within each egg.
"These fish eggs, equally supported by water on all sides, have retained an almost pure spherical form, and so have the tiny oil droplets inside them, used to make the eggs buoyant." (Foy and Oxford Scientific Films 1982:20)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Foy, Sally; Oxford Scientific Films. 1982. The Grand Design: Form and Colour in Animals. Lingfield, Surrey, U.K.: BLA Publishing Limited for J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd, Aldine House, London. 238 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/00afe1e6df5f46ca1dcee6218ce82389 |
Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) Stats
Specimen Records:432017
Specimens with Sequences:391292
Specimens with Barcodes:331659
Species:32563
Species With Barcodes:29752
Public Records:241174
Public Species:19118
Public BINs:26818
The Phylum Chordata includes the well-known vertebrates (fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals). The vertebrates and hagfishes together comprise the taxon Craniata. The remaining chordates are the tunicates (Urochordata), lancelets (Cephalochordata), and, possibly, some odd extinct groups. With few exceptions, chordates are active animals with bilaterally symmetric bodies that are longitudinally differentiated into head, trunk and tail. The most distinctive morphological features of chordates are the notochord, nerve cord, and visceral clefts and arches.
Chordates are well represented in marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats from the Equator to the high northern and southern latitudes. The oldest fossil chordates are of Cambrian age. The earliest is Yunnanozoon lividum from the Early Cambrian, 525 Ma (= million years ago), of China. This was just recently described and placed with the cephalochordates (Chen et al., 1995). Another possible cephalochordate is Pikaia (Nelson, 1994) from the Middle Cambrian. These fossils are highly significant because they imply the contemporary existence of the tunicates and craniates in the Early Cambrian during the so-called Cambrian Explosion of animal life. Two other extinct Cambrian taxa, the calcichordates and conodonts, are uncertainly related to other Chordata (Nelson, 1994). In the Tree of Life project, conodonts are placed as a subgroup of vertebrates.
Chordates other than craniates include entirely aquatic forms. The strictly marine Urochordata or Tunicata are commonly known as tunicates, sea squirts, and salps. There are roughly 1,600 species of urochordates; most are small solitary animals but some are colonial, organisms. Nearly all are sessile as adults but they have free-swimming, active larval forms. Urochordates are unknown as fossils. Cephalochordata are also known as amphioxus and lancelets. The group contains only about 20 species of sand-burrowing marine creatures. The Cambrian fossils Yunnanozoon and Pikaia are likely related to modern cephalochordates.
During the Ordovician Period (510 - 439 Ma) jawless or agnathan fishes appeared and diversified. These are the earliest known members of Vertebrata, the chordate subgroup that is most familiar to us. Fossils representing most major lineages of fish-like vertebrates and the earliest tetrapods (Amphibia) were in existence before the end of the Devonian Period (363 Ma). Reptile-like tetrapods originated during the Carboniferous (363 - 290 Ma), mammals differentiated before the end of the Triassic (208 Ma) and birds before the end of the Jurassic (146 Ma).
The smallest chordates (e.g. some of the tunicates and gobioid fishes) are mature at a length of about 1 cm, whereas the largest animals that have ever existed are chordates: some sauropod dinosaurs reached more than 20 m and living blue whales grow to about 30 m.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | John G. Lundberg, Tree of Life web project |
Source | http://tolweb.org/Chordata/2499 |
Chordates form a very diverse phylum with species living all over the planet (1). The extant animals in the phylum include the vertebrates—a familiar group that includes fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds—plus less well-known creatures including hagfish (which, together, with vertebrates make up the group Craniata), lancelets, and tunicates(1). A crucial defining feature of chordates is a long, cartilage-like(2) structure called the notochord (1,2), which runs along the central axis of the embryo of all chordates (2) and is important in embryonic development (1,2). While in the more modern chordates, the notochord turns into bone before birth(2), in some ancient vertebrates, such as lampreys and sturgeons, the notochord remains in the body for all of the animals’ lives(2); in the even older chordates such as tunicates and lancelets, which do not have backbones, the notochord remains for part or all of the animals’ lives as well, providing the structural support needed for them to swim(1,2). These creatures, particularly lancelets, are probably related to the oldest chordate fossils ever found, which date back to the Early Cambrian period, some 525 million years ago(1).
- 1. Lundberg, John G. “Chordata.” Tree of Life Web Project. 1995. 1 Sept. 2011. http://tolweb.org/Chordata/2499
- 2. Stemple, Derek L. “Structure and Function of the Notochord: An Essential Organ for Chordate Development.” Development 132 (2005): 2503-2512.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Noah Weisz, Noah Weisz |
Source | No source database. |