Invertebrate Animal Vocabulary Flashcards
An animal that does not have a backbone.
Invertebrate
An organism that eats other organisms or organic matter.
Consumer
A mass of nerve cells.
Ganglion
The digestive tract.
Gut
A body cavity that contains the internal organs.
Coelom
The property of being divisible into symmetrical halves on either side of a unique plane.
Bilateral Symmetry
An animal of a large group, distinguished by the possession of a backbone or spinal column, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes.
Vertebrates
A circulatory system in which the circulatory fluid is not contained entirely within vessels.
Open circulatory system
A circulatory system in which the heart circulates blood through a network of blood vessels that form a closed loop.
Closed circulatory system
Symmetry around a central axis, as in a starfish or a tulip flower.
Radial Symmetry
Lack of equality or equivalence between parts or aspects of something; lack of symmetry.
Asymmetry
A primitive sedentary aquatic invertebrate with a soft porous body that is typically supported by a framework of fibers or calcareous or glassy spicules. Sponges draw in a current of water to extract nutrients and oxygen.
Sponges
An aquatic invertebrate animal of the phylum Cnidarian, which comprises the coelenterates.
Cnidarians
A worm of a phylum which includes the Parisians together with the parasitic flukes and tapeworms. They are distinguished by having a simple flattened body which lacks blood vessels, and a digestive tract which, if present, has a single opening.
Flatworms
A nematode, especially a parasitic one found in the intestines of mammals.
Roundworms
An invertebrate of a large phylum which includes snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses. They have a soft unsegmented body and live in aquatic or damp habitats, and most kinds have an external calcareous shell.
Mollusks
A large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including rag worms, earthworms, and leeches.
Annelid worms
A rigid external covering for the body in some invertebrate animals, especially arthropods, providing both support and protection.
Exoskeleton
An eye consisting of an array of numerous small visual units, as found in insects and crustaceans.
Compound eye
A pair of long, thin sensory appendages on the heads of insects, crustaceans, and some other arthropods.
Antenna
The process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages.
Metamorphosis
An internal skeleton, such as the bony or cartilaginous skeleton of vertebrates.
Endoskeleton
A network of water vessels in the body, the tube feet being operated by hydraulic pressure within the vessels.
Water vascular system
