Key Vocabulary

Vertebrate: having vertebrae; having a backbone or spinal column

Mammal: any vertebrate of the class Mammalia, having the body more or less covered with hair, nourishing the young with milk from the mammary glands, and, with the exception of the egg-laying monotremes, giving birth to live young.

Reptile: any cold-blooded vertebrate of the class Reptilia, comprising the turtles, snakes, lizards, crocodilians, amphisbaenians, tuatara, and various extinct members including the dinosaurs.

Bird: any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.

Amphibian: any cold-blooded vertebrate of the class Amphibia, comprising frogs and toads, newts and salamanders, and caecilians, the larvae being typically aquatic, breathing by gills, and the adults being typically semiterrestrial, breathing by lungs and through the moist, glandular skin.

Fish: any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales

Invertebrate: not vertebrate; without a backbone.

Herbivore: feeding on plants

Carnivore: feeding on meat/other animals

Omnivore: feeding on both plants and animals

Frugivore: any chiefly fruit-eating organism, as certain bats

Insectivore: adapted to feeding on insects.medusavore

Medusavore: feeding primarily on soft bodied organisms, such as jellyfish or pyrosomes (i.e leatherback sea turtles)

Spongivore: an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating animals of the phylum Porifera, commonly called sea sponges, for the main component of its diet.