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Vertebrates Fertilization Development Scales Turtles Tuatara Lizards Snakes Crocodiles Birds Archosauria Bird

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Jhuliane Ralph
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51 views

Vertebrates Fertilization Development Scales Turtles Tuatara Lizards Snakes Crocodiles Birds Archosauria Bird

Uploaded by

Jhuliane Ralph
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reptile, any member of the class Reptilia, the group of air-

breathing vertebrates that have internal fertilization,


amniotic development, and epidermal scales covering part or all of
their body. The major groups of living reptiles—the turtles (order
Testudines), tuatara (order Rhynchocephalia
[Sphenodontida]), lizards and snakes (order Squamata),
and crocodiles (order Crocodylia, or Crocodilia)—account for over
8,700 species. Birds (class Aves) share a common ancestor with
crocodiles in subclass Archosauria and are technically one lineage of
reptiles, but they are treated separately (see bird).



Painted turtle (Chrysemys picta).


Leonard Lee Rue III—The National Audubon Society
Collection/Photo Researchers
snake: common king snake
Common king snake (Lampropeltis getula).
Jack Dermid
Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus).
© Denys Denysevych/Dreamstime.com

The extinct reptiles included an even more diverse group of animals


that ranged from the marine plesiosaurs, pliosaurs,
and ichthyosaurs to the giant plant-eating and meat-
eating dinosaurs of terrestrial environments. Taxonomically, Reptilia
and Synapsida (a group of mammal-like reptiles and their extinct
relatives) were sister groups that diverged from a common ancestor
during the Middle Pennsylvanian Epoch (approximately 312 million to
307 million years ago). For millions of years representatives of these
two groups were superficially similar. However, slowly lifestyles
diverged, and from the synapsid line came hairy mammals that
possessed an endothermic (warm-blooded) physiology and mammary
glands for feeding their young. All birds and some groups of extinct
reptiles, such as selected groups of dinosaurs, also evolved an
endothermic physiology. However, the majority of modern reptiles
possess an ectothermic (cold-blooded) physiology. Today only the
leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) has a near-endothermic
physiology. So far no reptile, living or extinct, has developed
specialized skin glands for feeding its young.


Black girdle-tailed lizard (Cordylus nigra)


Heather Angel
tuatara
Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus).
M.F. Soper/Bruce Coleman Inc.
General Features
Most reptiles have a continuous external covering of epidermal scales.
Reptile scales contain a unique type of keratin called beta keratin; the
scales and interscalar skin also contain alpha keratin, which is a trait
shared with other vertebrates. Keratin is the main component of
reptilian scales. Scales may be very small, as in the microscopic
tubercular scales of dwarf geckos (Sphaerodactylus), or relatively
large, as in the body scales of many groups of lizards and snakes. The
largest scales are the scutes covering the shell of a turtle or the plates
of a crocodile.
lizard body structures
Specialized body structures of lizards: (A) frill of a frilled lizard
(Chlamydosaurus kingii), (B) dewlap of an anole (Anolis), (C) fin of the
water lizard (Hydrosaurus), (D) toe fans of a fan-footed gecko (Ptyodactylus
hasselquistii), and (E) toes of the fringe-toed lizard (Uma).
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Other features also define the class Reptilia. The occipital condyle (a
protuberance where the skull attaches to the first vertebra) is single.
The cervical vertebrae in reptiles have midventral keels, and the
intercentrum of the second cervical vertebra fuses to the axis in adults.
Taxa with well-developed limbs have two or more sacral vertebrae.
The lower jaw of reptiles is made up of several bones but lacks an
anterior coronoid bone. In the ear a single auditory bone, the stapes,
transmits sound vibrations from the eardrum (tympanum) to
the inner ear. Sexual reproduction is internal, and sperm may be
deposited by copulation or through the apposition of cloacae. Asexual
reproduction by parthenogenesis also occurs in some
groups. Development may be internal, with embryos retained in the
female’s oviducts, and embryos of some species may be attached to the
mother by a placenta. However, development in most species is
external, with embryos enclosed in shelled eggs. In all cases
each embryo is encased in an amnion, a membranous fluid-filled sac.

Importance
In the agriculture industry as a whole, reptiles do not have a great
commercial value compared with fowl and hoofed mammals;
nonetheless, they have a significant economic value for food and
ecological services (such as insect control) at the local level, and they
are valued nationally and internationally for food, medicinal
products, leather goods, and the pet trade.

Reptiles have their greatest economic impact in some temperate and


many tropical areas, although this impact is often overlooked because
their contribution is entirely local. A monetary value is often not
assigned to any vertebrate that provides pest control. Nonetheless,
many lizards control insect pests in homes and gardens; snakes are
major predators of rodents, and the importance of rodent control has
been demonstrated repeatedly when populations of rodent-eating
snakes are decimated by snake harvesting for the leather trade. The
absence of such snakes allows rodent populations to explode.
Similarly, turtles, crocodiles, snakes, and lizards are regularly
harvested as food for local consumption in many tropical areas. When
this harvesting becomes commercial, the demands on local reptile
populations commonly exceed the ability of species to replace
themselves by normal reproductive means. Harvesting is often
concentrated on the larger individuals of most species, and these
individuals are often the adult females and males in the population;
their removal greatly reduces the breeding stock and leads to a
precipitous population decline.
The overharvesting of crocodiles for the leather industry in the 1950s
and 1960s caused the widespread extirpation, or localized extinction,
of many crocodilian species. In addition, surviving populations
experienced a near-worldwide drop in numbers. Since then,
regulations at the national and international levels have greatly
reduced the harvests, and proactive conservation and management
measures have allowed many crocodilian populations to rebound.
Regulated harvesting currently provides an adequate number of skins
to the leather trade and also allows crocodiles to resume their role as
top predators in many aquatic ecosystems. The late 20th-century
return of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) from near
extinction in the southeastern United States demonstrates that
successful management of reptile populations is possible if it is closely
supervised.

Regulated harvesting of large snakes and lizards is also underway in


parts of Indonesia. In addition, several groups of reptiles (tegu lizards
in Argentina, freshwater turtles in China, and green iguanas [Iguana
iguana] in Central America) are raised as livestock. Often the process
of regulated harvesting begins with the removal of a few eggs,
juveniles, or adults from wild populations. Stocks of reptiles are raised
on farms and ranches. Farms and ranches then sell some individuals
to commercial interests, while others are retained as breeding stock.

Reptiles have contributed significantly to a variety of biomedical and


basic biological research programs. Snake venom studies contributed
greatly to the care of heart-attack patients in the 1960s and 1970s and
are widely studied in the development of pain-management drugs.
Field studies of lizards and other reptiles and the manipulation of
populations of various lizard species (such as the anoles [Anolis]) have
provided scientists opportunities to test hypotheses on different
aspects of evolution. Reptile research remains an important area of
evolutionary biology. Similarly, lizards and other reptiles have
provided experimental models for examining physiological
mechanisms, especially those associated with body heat.

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