What is "craniate"

n. (context zoology English) Any member of the clade ''Craniata'' bearing bony skulls.

n. animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a skull or cranium [syn: vertebrate]

A craniate is a member of Craniata (sometimes Craniota), a proposed clade of chordate animals that contains the Myxini (hagfish), Petromyzontida (including lampreys), and Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates) as living representatives. As the name suggests, craniates are animals with a (hard bone or cartilage) skull in phylum Chordata.