In today's society and modern medicine, animals are extremely important in research, especially translational research. Translational research is research that applies its findings to medical practices as well as myriad other fields in order to positively influence subjects (Rubio et al. 470-475). The research cannot be conducted on humans for moral reasons, therefore animals are used. To ensure that animals are not mistreated during research, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) must approve research projects that require the use of animals. Some animals are used during research, let's find out which animals and why. One phylum prominent in research is the chordates. This phylum includes a wide variety of animals ranging from birds and snakes to rats and mice. Chordates are assumed to be the descendants of echinoderms and date back to the Precambrian era. Some characteristics of chordates include living in marine, terrestrial, and freshwater habitats, bilateral symmetry, triploblastic, and most importantly, the five hallmarks shared among all chordates, w...