An exoskeleton is not an animal, but a part of an animal. A skeleton is simply something in an animal that provides as a structural support and (except for sponges) something to anchor the muscles to. There are two sorts of skeleton:
The two types of skeleton are not mutually exclusive; an organism can easily have both. The first example that pops into my mind are the ostracoderms, which lived from the Lower Ordovician to the Upper Devonian. These were jawless fishes that had armour on their outside for defence, but also had vertebrae and an internal skeleton.
So, long story short, an exoskeleton is not an invertebrate, nor is it a vertebrate. It does not meet the criteria by which this is determined.
Copyright © 2026 eLLeNow.com All Rights Reserved.