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A simple podlike pericarp which contains several seeds and opens along the inner or ventral suture, as in the peony, larkspur and milkweed.

The muscular locomotive organ of a mollusk. It is a median organ arising from the ventral region of body, often in the form of a flat disk, as in snails. See Illust. of Buccinum.

esh-water snails. They generally creep by means of a flat, muscular disk, or foot, on the ventral side of the body. The head usually bears one or two pairs of tentacles. See Mollusca. [Written also Gasteropoda.]

A group of small wormlike animals, having cilia on the ventral side. The group is regarded as an ancestral or synthetic one, related to rotifers and annelids.

A form of annelid larva having cilia on the ventral side.

A long, footless lizard (Ophiosaurus ventralis), of the Southern United States; -- so called from its fragility, the tail easily breaking into small pieces. It grows to the length of three feet. The name is applied also to similar species found in the Old World.

A ventral canal or groove, in which the males of some dioecious trematodes carry the female. See Illust. of Hæmatozoa.

Pertaining to the blood or blood vessels; also, ventral. See Hemal.

Having the limbs on, or directed toward, the ventral or hemal side, as in vertebrates; -- opposed to neuropodous.

A process, or other element, of a vertebra developed from the ventral side of the centrum, as hæmal spines, and chevron bones. -- Hy`pa*po*phys"i*al, a.

Below the gills; -- applied to the ventral portion of the pallial chamber in the lamellibranchs.

The ventral and posterior of the three principal bones composing either half of the pelvis; seat bone; the huckle bone.

Having the ventral fins beneath the throat; -- said of certain fishes.

The portion of a vibrating string, air column, etc., between two nodes; -- called also ventral segment. Loop knot, a single knot tied in a doubled cord, etc. so as to leave a loop beyond the knot. See Illust. of Knot.

has a dorsal row of spiny tubercles, and three rows on each side, but has no scales. The ventral fins unite and form a ventral sucker for adhesion to stones and seaweeds. Called also lumpsucker, cock-paddle, sea owl.

The middle portion of the ventral surface of the fornix of the brain; -- so called from the arrangement of the lines with which it is marked in the human brain.

n which it meets the dorsal surface has been called the dorsimeson, and the corresponding ventral edge the ventrimeson. B. G. Wilder.

The ventral piece of the middle segment of the thorax in insects.

The ventral plate of the third or last segment of the thorax of insects.

) A gallinule, esp. the European species. See Gallinule. (c) An Australian rail (Tribonyx ventralis). -- Moor monkey (Zoöl.), the black macaque of Borneo (Macacus maurus). -- Moor titling (Zoöl.), the European stonechat (Pratinocola rubicola).