Title: Vertebrate
Content:  The defining characteristic of a vertebrate is the vertebral column, in which the notochord (a stiff rod of uniform composition) found in all chordates has been replaced by a segmented series of stiffer elements (vertebrae) separated by mobile joints (intervertebral discs, derived embryonically and evolutionarily from the notochord). However, a few vertebrates have secondarily lost this anatomy, retaining the notochord into adulthood, such as the sturgeon and coelacanth. Jawed vertebrates are typified by paired appendages (fins or legs, which may be secondarily lost), but this trait is not required in order for an animal to be a vertebrate. 
Title: Biology
Content:  and arthropods (insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and myriapods). Many invertebrate taxa have a greater number and variety of species than the entire subphylum of Vertebrata. In contrast, vertebrates comprise all species of animals within the subphylum Vertebrata, which are chordates with vertebral columns. These animals have four key features, which are an anterior skull with a brain, a rigid internal skeleton supported by a vertebral column that encloses a spinal cord, internal organs suspended in a coelom, and a well-developed circulatory system driven by a single large heart. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 69,963 species described. Vertebrates comprise different 
Title: Vertebrate
Content:  (mammals and the extinct mammal-like reptiles) ; Class Sauropsida (reptiles and birds)  Conventional classification has living vertebrates grouped into seven classes based on traditional interpretations of gross anatomical and physiological traits. This classification is the one most commonly encountered in school textbooks, overviews, non-specialist, and popular works. The extant vertebrates are:  In addition to these, there are two classes of extinct armoured fishes, the Placodermi and the Acanthodii, both of which are considered paraphyletic. Other ways of classifying the vertebrates have been devised, particularly with emphasis on the phylogeny of early amphibians and reptiles. An example based on Janvier (1981, 1997), Shu et al. (2003), and Benton (2004) is given here († = extinct):  
Title: Anatomy
Content:  of the animal, and the anus at the base of the tail. The defining characteristic of a vertebrate is the vertebral column, formed in the development of the segmented series of vertebrae. In most vertebrates the notochord becomes the nucleus pulposus of the intervertebral discs. However, a few vertebrates, such as the sturgeon and the coelacanth retain the notochord into adulthood. Jawed vertebrates are typified by paired appendages, fins or legs, which may be secondarily lost. The limbs of vertebrates are considered to be homologous because the same underlying skeletal structure was inherited from their last common ancestor. This is one of the arguments put forward by Charles Darwin to support his theory of evolution.
Title: Animal
Content:   Animals have several characteristics that set them apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular. Unlike plants and algae, which produce their own nutrients animals are heterotrophic, feeding on organic material and digesting it internally. With very few exceptions, animals respire aerobically. All animals are motile (able to spontaneously move their bodies) during at least part of their life cycle, but some animals, such as sponges, corals, mussels, and barnacles, later become sessile. The blastula is a stage in embryonic development that is unique to animals, (though it has been lost in some) allowing cells to be differentiated into specialised tissues and organs.
Title: Chordate
Content:   Craniates all have distinct skulls. They include the hagfish, which have no vertebrae. Michael J. Benton commented that "craniates are characterized by their heads, just as chordates, or possibly all deuterostomes, are by their tails". Most craniates are vertebrates, in which the notochord is replaced by the vertebral column. These consist of a series of bony or cartilaginous cylindrical vertebrae, generally with neural arches that protect the spinal cord, and with projections that link the vertebrae. However hagfish have incomplete braincases and no vertebrae, and are therefore not regarded as vertebrates, but as members of the craniates, the group from which vertebrates are 
Title: Fish anatomy
Content:   Fish are vertebrates. All vertebrates are built along the basic chordate body plan: a stiff rod running through the length of the animal (vertebral column or notochord), with a hollow tube of nervous tissue (the spinal cord) above it and the gastrointestinal tract below. In all vertebrates, the mouth is found at, or right below, the anterior end of the animal, while the anus opens to the exterior before the end of the body. The remaining part of the body beyond the anus forms a tail with vertebrae and the spinal cord, but no gut. The defining characteristic of a vertebrate is the vertebral 
Title: Invertebrate
Content:  The trait that is common to all invertebrates is the absence of a vertebral column (backbone): this creates a distinction between invertebrates and vertebrates. The distinction is one of convenience only; it is not based on any clear biologically homologous trait, any more than the common trait of having wings functionally unites insects, bats, and birds, or than not having wings unites tortoises, snails and sponges. Being animals, invertebrates are heterotrophs, and require sustenance in the form of the consumption of other organisms. With a few exceptions, such as the Porifera, invertebrates generally have bodies composed of differentiated tissues. There is also typically a digestive chamber with one or two openings to the exterior.
Title: Vertebrate
Content:  In addition to the morphological characteristics used to define vertebrates (i.e. the presence of a notochord, the development of a vertebral column from the notochord, a dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal gills, a post-anal tail, etc.), molecular markers known as conserved signature indels (CSIs) in protein sequences have been identified and provide distinguishing criteria for the subphylum Vertebrata. Specifically, 5 CSIs in the following proteins: protein synthesis elongation factor-2 (EF-2), eukaryotic translational initiation factor 3 (Euk IF-3), adenosine kinase (AdK) and a protein related to ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase are exclusively shared by all vertebrates and reliably distinguish them from all other metazoan. The CSIs in these protein sequences are predicted to play important functionally important in vertebrates. A specific relationship between Vertebrates and Tunicates is also strongly supported by two CSIs found in the proteins predicted exosome complex RRP44 and serine palmitoyltransferase, that are exclusively shared by species from these two subphyla but not Cephalochordates, indicating Vertebrates are more closely related to Tunicates than Cephalochordates.
Title: Zoology
Content:  Vertebrate zoology is the biological discipline that consists of the study of vertebrate animals, that is animals with a backbone, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The various taxonomically oriented disciplines such as mammalogy, biological anthropology, herpetology, ornithology, and ichthyology seek to identify and classify species and study the structures and mechanisms specific to those groups. The rest of the animal kingdom is dealt with by invertebrate zoology, a vast and very diverse group of animals that includes sponges, echinoderms, tunicates, worms, molluscs, arthropods and many other phyla, but single-celled organisms or protists are not usually included.

Question: distinctive characteristics of animals classified as vertebrates include?
Answer: backbones.
have a vertebral column.