Cambridge O Level Biology · Syllabus 5090 · Classification
Vertebrate
What is Vertebrate?
A vertebrate is an animal with a backbone. The five vertebrate groups required by Cambridge O Level Biology are mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, and they are separated mainly by body covering, the surface used for gas exchange, the way eggs or young are produced, and whether body temperature is maintained internally.
This definition is part of the Classification chapter in Cambridge O Level Biology.
Vertebrate in context
Classification is the placing of living organisms into groups on the basis of the features they share, so that organisms with many features in common sit in the same group. Cambridge O Level Biology (5090) Chapter 2 covers four things: the definition of a species and the binomial naming system, dichotomous keys, the five kingdoms (animal, plant, fungus, prokaryote and protoctist), and the observable features that separate the vertebrate groups, the arthropod groups, ferns from flowering plants and monocotyledons from dicotyledons. Viruses sit apart from all five kingdoms because they have no cellular structure.