Take a moment and imagine what life would be like if you didn’t have a backbone. Think of all the things you couldn’t do. Imagine never being able to sit up straight, lift a heavy object, or have a definite body shape. That’s what today was about, invertebrates.
This group of animals makes up over 99% of the animal kingdom, yet we barely know anything about them. After a small overview, we began our dissection of a squid and a starfish. These two animals are some of the most important in the ocean, bridging vital gaps in the marine food web. The squid is one of the best examples of evolution as evidence of its ancestor, the mollusk is present in its anatomy. The starfish is able to regenerate lost body parts, and its stem cells may one day be used for medical purposes.
