Vertebrate

[[File:Vertebrates.png|thumb|Individual organisms from each major vertebrate group. Clockwise, starting from top left:

Fire Salamander, Saltwater Crocodile, Southern Cassowary, Black-and-rufous Giant Elephant Shrew, Ocean Sunfish]] Vertebrates are any species of animals within the subphylum Vertebrata (chordates with spines).

Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 64,000 Terran species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fish and the jawed vertebrates, which includes the cartilaginous fish (sharks and rays) and the bony fish. A bony fish clade known as the lobe-finned fishes includes the tetrapods, which are divided into amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. Extant vertebrates range in size from the frog species  Paedophryne amauensis , at as little as 7.7 mm, to the Blue Whale, at up to 33 m. Vertebrates make up about 4% of all described Terran animal species; the rest are invertebrates, which lack spines.

Although of Terran origin, this term is widely used by Union Exobiologists to classify any creature with a spine-like structure. This includes most endoskeletal species.