Glossary
V...
Vegetarian: Eating only
plants (see herbivore).
Vegetation: plants.
Venom: Poisonous chemical
excreted by animals or plants.
Venomous: Characteristic
of an animal that produces venom.
Ventral: The lower or
under surface of animals.
Vertebrate: An animal
with a backbone. Fishes and people are both
vertebrates.
Vertical: Up-and-down;
in the up-and-down direction (opposite of
horizontal).
Vertical migration: An
aquatic animal's daily or seasonal movement
up toward the water's surface and back down
to deeper water.
Vestigial: Nonfunctioning,
a remnant of a body part that existed in
a former species of an animal. Whales have
tiny, vestigial hind legs buried deep in
their bodies.
Viscosity: The ability
of a liquid to resist the movement of an
object (internal resistance of the liquid),
caused by molecular attraction within the
liquid.
Volcano limpet: A large
limpet with a volcano-shaped shell; it prefers
warm waters.
Volcanoes: Places where
magma from deep in the Earth breaks to surface.
Steep-sided volcanoes occur at places where
ocean plates collide. Flat volcanoes are
found on plates that move slowly over hot
spots.
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