Craniata

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Craniates)

Craniata
Temporal range: Early Cambrian - Recent
Pacific hagfish resting on bottom down off Oregon coast.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Phylum:
(unranked):
Craniata

Janvier 1981
Subphyla

Cephalaspidomorphi (disputed)
Vertebrata

Craniata (sometimes Craniota) is a proposed clade of chordate animals that contains the vertebrates (subphylum Vertebrata) and Myxini (hagfish) as living representatives. Craniata includes all animals with a skull, or cranium, as the name suggests.

These two taxa lack proper vertebrae, which are characteristic for vertebrates according to the new interpretation, whereas traditionally—and confusingly—they were not (Hickman et al., 2007).