Biology 259
COMPARATIVE VERTEBRATE ANATOMY
Next offered: Fall 2010
The vertebrates are a group with a 550 million year history, represented on earth today by some 60,000 species. Vertebrates walk, swim, fly, and inhabit almost every type of habitat on the planet. They feed on everything --plants, microorganisms, invertebrates, and each other. Vertebrates range in size from a fish 7 mm long, to a whale 35 m long. Vertebrates include fishes, frogs, cats, turtles, snakes, birds, crocodiles --and us. This course examines the anatomy of vertebrates: where it came from, and how it allows them to do what they do.
(above: Squalus acanthius --your companion for the semester!)
By the end of the course students should have gained
-
a familiarity with the structural diversity of the 60,000 or so living vertebrates and some of their extinct ancestors
-
a detailed knowledge of the anatomy of a few representative vertebrates studied in lab (cat, shark, salamander)
-
an understanding of the major structural trends and innovations in the history of vertebrates, and
-
an appreciation of how the evolutionary forces of environmental adaptation and phylogenetic constraint have shaped living organisms.
Three lectures and one three-hour laboratory per week.
Prerequisites: Biology 111, 112
Syllabus Fall 2008
 |
(above) A placoderm, extinct representative of the first group of vertebrates to have jaws. This one was a formidable predator 400 million years ago.. Several metres long, it was covered in bony armor plates, but had an internal skeleton made of cartilage. |
|---|---|
(above) Dissection of the circulatory system of the anterior part of a cat. (from Kardong and Zalisko, 2006) |
 |
|---|
(above) Bio 259 class, fall 2007