Your Inner Fish
This phylum includes fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
What is Chordata?
These are the three main body regions of a fish.
What are the head, trunk, and tail?
What are two factors that explain why there's no single "fish body plan"?
What are habitat and lifestyle?
What key cellular process requires oxygen?
What is cellular respiration?
These structures grow rings like trees over time!
What are otoliths?
These jawless fish fall in the class Agnatha.
What are lampreys and hagfishes?
These structures both protect the fish and influence drag in water. Sharks have a version that resembles tiny teeth.
What are scales?
A fish that needs to swim long distances quickly in open water would most likely have this body shape.
What is fusiform?
Most fish are this type of thermoregulator.
What are ectotherms?
This is the function of olfactory sacs.
What is detection of chemical signals (smell)?
This structure later becomes the backbone in vertebrates.
What is the notochord?
This structure covers the gills in bony fish.
What is the operculum?
This flattened body shape is common in bottom dwellers.
What is dorsoventrally flattened?
What is the process of maintaining water and salt balance in the body despite external conditions?
What is osmoregulation?
These sensory cells make up the lateral line.
What are neuromasts?
This lineage of fish provided the foundation for all land vertebrates.
What are lobe-finned fish?
This type of skeleton provides a buoyancy advantage because it is lighter and more flexible.
What is cartilage?
This is the key advantage of a laterally compressed fish.
What is maneuverability?
This system of flow describes the movement of blood and oxygenated water in opposite directions.
What is countercurrent system of flow?
These structures allow sharks to detect prey hidden beneath sand by sensing electrical signals.
What are Ampullae of Lorenzini?
These structures are what pharyngeal slits eventually become in humans.
What are parts of the jaw, ear, and throat?
This difference from bony fish explains why cartilaginous fish must rely more on movement for buoyancy than bony fish.
What is the absence of a swim bladder?
Because water is about 800 times denser than air, fish must adapt their bodies primarily to reduce this force.
What is drag?
This is the term for the type of breathing that most sharks use.
What is ram ventilation?
A fish swimming in complete darkness would rely heavily on this system to detect nearby movement.
What is the lateral line?