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Reptiles are tetrapod animals in the class Reptilia, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology.
Tetrapoda includes three living classes: amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Overall, the biodiversity of lissamphibians, [23] as well as of tetrapods generally, [24] has grown exponentially over time; the more than 30,000 species living today are descended from a single amphibian group in the Early to Middle Devonian.
Reptiles, from Nouveau Larousse Illustré, 1897–1904, notice the inclusion of amphibians (below the crocodiles). In the 13th century, the category of reptile was recognized in Europe as consisting of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, lizards, assorted amphibians, and worms", as recorded by Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature. [7]
The best-known source of many English words used for collective groupings of animals is The Book of Saint Albans, an essay on hunting published in 1486 and attributed to Juliana Berners. [1] Most terms used here may be found in common dictionaries and general information web sites. [2] [3] [4
The list below largely follows Darrel Frost's Amphibian Species of the World (ASW), Version 5.5 (31 January 2011). Another classification, which largely follows Frost, but deviates from it in part is the one of AmphibiaWeb , which is run by the California Academy of Sciences and several of universities.
For instance, descendants of the first reptiles include modern reptiles, mammals and birds; the agnathans have given rise to the jawed vertebrates; the bony fishes have given rise to the land vertebrates; a group of amphibians, the labyrinthodonts, have given rise to the reptiles (traditionally including the mammal-like synapsids), which in ...
The decline in amphibian and reptile populations has led to an awareness of the effects of pesticides on reptiles and amphibians. [176] In the past, the argument that amphibians or reptiles were more susceptible to any chemical contamination than any land aquatic vertebrate was not supported by research until recently. [176]
"Herp" is a vernacular term for non-avian reptiles and amphibians. It is derived from the archaic term "herpetile", with roots back to Linnaeus's classification of animals, in which he grouped reptiles and amphibians in the same class. There are over 6700 species of amphibians [9] and over 9000 species of reptiles. [10]