Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The mollusks are a diverse group (85,000 described species) of mostly marine species. They have a variety of forms, ranging from large predatory squid and octopus, some…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The animal phyla of this and subsequent modules are triploblastic and have an embryonic mesoderm sandwiched between the ectoderm and endoderm. These phyla are also bilaterally symmetrical,…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The kingdom of animals is informally divided into invertebrate animals, those without a backbone, and vertebrate animals, those with a backbone. Although in general we are most…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Even though members of the animal kingdom are incredibly diverse, animals share common features that distinguish them from organisms in other kingdoms. All animals are eukaryotic, multicellular…
Figure 15.1 The leaf chameleon (Brookesia micra) was discovered in northern Madagascar in 2012. At just over one inch long, it is the smallest known chameleon. (credit: modification of work by Frank Glaw, et al., PLOS) Chapter Outline 15.1 Features of the Animal…
The Plant Kingdom Land plants evolved traits that made it possible to colonize land and survive out of water. Adaptations to life on land include vascular tissues, roots, leaves, waxy cuticles, and a tough outer layer that protects the spores.…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: From their humble and still obscure beginning during the early Jurassic period (202–145.5 MYA), the angiosperms, or flowering plants, have successfully evolved to dominate most terrestrial ecosystems.…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The first plants to colonize land were most likely closely related to modern-day mosses (bryophytes) and are thought to have appeared about 500 million years ago. They…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: An incredible variety of seedless plants populates the terrestrial landscape. Mosses grow on tree trunks, and horsetails (Figure 14.9) display their jointed stems and spindly leaves on…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Plants are a large and varied group of organisms. There are close to 300,000 species of catalogued plants.1 Of these, about 260,000 are plants that produce seeds. Mosses,…