Definitions for "Chordates"
Animals with spinal cords. This includes all vertebrates (animals with backbones) and a few other animals with spinal cords.
Animals that possess a rod of flexible tissue (notochord); includes vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals).
a biological division including chiefly the vertebrates, but embracing also those animals that have a notochord -- an elastic rod dividing the dorsal from the ventral regions.