The course will provide basic elements regarding Vertebrate origin and evolution with essentials of the systematics of the different groups. The section more strictly related to evolutionary biology will be mostly based on fundamentals of developmental biology for the description of the appareance and evolution of the main anatomical and physiological characteristics .After the presentation of the different vertebrate groups the course will deal with a comparative description of some organ systems: skeletal, tegumentary, escretory, reproductive, nervous