Talk:Vertebrate

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General characteristics aren't just anatomy

I've been scratching my head wondering why this article seems so far off-beam. Partly it was the lack of citations; partly it was the endless diving down hyper-technical rabbit-holes, often applying only to one or another class within the vertebrates; partly it was the complex jargon (yeah, mesencephalon really trips off the tongue, perfect for an introductory article).

But mainly, I think, the trouble is that it conflates the worthy idea of describing the general characteristics of the group with anatomy. Actually, the anatomical features make more sense when considered together with their physiology (and the muscular heart isn't even mentioned!) ... and their behaviour (they were, and in large part still are, animals that swim, so they need a long structure to attach their swimming muscles to, so ... aha, a flexible but strong column...).

What the article needs is a clear chapter on general characteristics, not as a list of detached and incomprehensible features, but as an account of what they are and how they live. Treating "fish" as a separate class makes this worse. Seeing all vertebrates as fish or fish-derived is both historically accurate and helps the reader make sense of the group: they're aquatic (gills), they swim (bones, muscles), the oxygen needs to be circulated (heart), they have a front end which encounters the world (senses, cephalisation, central nervous system). Any discussion of anatomy must be secondary to all this. At the moment the account is both fragmentary and fails to cover many of the main points. It's time for a rewrite. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:57, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]