lancelet
nounAny of various small chordate marine organisms of the subphylum Cephalochordata, having a long thin body with a notochord but no cranium or vertebrae, and usually found buried in sand.
nounA lance.
nounThe sand-lance, amphioxns, or branchiostome, a skull-less fish-like vertebrate, representing a genus Branchiostoma or Ámphioxus, a family Branchiostomidæ or Á mphioxidæ, an order Pharyngobranchii, a class Leptocardii, and a ‘branch’ of vertebrates lately named Cephalochorda. See these names, and Acrania.
nounA small fishlike animal (
any of a group of
small translucent lancet-shaped burrowing marine animal; primitive forerunner of the vertebrates