Craniata
Appearance
Craniata Temporal range: Early Cambrian - Recent
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Pacific hagfish resting on bottom down off Oregon coast. | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Phylum: | |
(unranked): | Craniata Janvier 1981
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Subphyla | |
Cephalaspidomorphi (disputed) |
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).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Wikispecies-logo.svg/34px-Wikispecies-logo.svg.png)
Wikispecies has information on: Craniata.