Contractile tissues or muscles allow most movement in higher animals. There are three types of muscle tissue in vertebrates: striated muscle, smooth muscle, and cardiac muscle.
Striated muscle is characterized by its striated pattern of alternating light and dark bands. The individual cells of striated muscle, called fibers, have many nuclei and are also striated. Bundles of fibers are bound together by connective tissue; the bundles, in turn, are bound together to form muscle. Striated muscle, which is the most common type of muscle as well as the most common type of tissue in vertebrates, is stimulated by the somatic nervous system. Each cell of a muscle is excited by only
