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The white shell only forms when the egg has been fertilized and females will sometimes lay infertile, unshelled yellowish eggs known as "slugs". [130] The female lays one (occasionally two) eggs per time, [15] [48] [129] which typically is placed casually on the ground among leaf-litter, under debris, logs or rocks, or in a small hole.
Pelycosaur (/ ˈ p ɛ l ɪ k ə ˌ s ɔːr / PEL-ih-kə-sor) [1] is an older term for basal or primitive Late Paleozoic synapsids, excluding the therapsids and their descendants. Previously, the term mammal-like reptile had been used, [2] and pelycosaur was considered an order, but this is now thought to be incorrect and outdated.
A wealth of information about natural selection, genotypic, and phenotypic variation; [207] [208] adaptation and ecomorphology; [209] and social signaling [210] has been acquired from the studies of three species of lizards located in the White Sands desert of New Mexico.
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]
Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment. Only about 100 of the 12,000 extant reptile species and subspecies are classed as marine reptiles, including marine iguanas , sea snakes , sea turtles and saltwater crocodiles .
Rhynchocephalia (/ ˌ r ɪ ŋ k oʊ s ɪ ˈ f eɪ l i ə /; lit. ' beak-heads ') is an order of lizard-like reptiles that includes only one living species, the tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) of New Zealand.
A = Anapsid, B = Synapsid, C = Diapsid. It was traditionally assumed that first reptiles were anapsids, having a solid skull with holes only for the nose, eyes, spinal cord, etc.; [10] the discoveries of synapsid-like openings in the skull roof of the skulls of several members of Parareptilia, including lanthanosuchoids, millerettids, bolosaurids, some nycteroleterids, some procolophonoids and ...
The overall composition of biodiversity was driven primarily by amphibians in the Palaeozoic, dominated by reptiles in the Mesozoic and expanded by the explosive growth of birds and mammals in the Cenozoic. As biodiversity has grown, so has the number of species and the number of niches that tetrapods have occupied.