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While reptiles and amphibians can be quite similar externally, the French zoologist Pierre André Latreille recognized the large physiological differences at the beginning of the 19th century and split the herptiles into two classes, giving the four familiar classes of tetrapods: amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
Toad is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In popular culture ( folk taxonomy ), toads are distinguished from frogs by their drier, rougher skin and association with more terrestrial habitats. [ 3 ]
A common toad adopts a defensive stance Grass snake eating adult common toad, Czech Republic. The common toad usually moves by walking rather slowly or in short shuffling jumps involving all four legs. It spends the day concealed in a lair that it has hollowed out under foliage or beneath a root or a stone where its colouring makes it ...
The evolution of tetrapods began about 400 million years ago in the Devonian Period with the earliest tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fishes. [1] Tetrapods (under the apomorphy-based definition used on this page) are categorized as animals in the biological superclass Tetrapoda, which includes all living and extinct amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
The Surinam toad catches prey by entraining large volumes of water for ingestion and by limiting fish escape with its fingers. It uses bidirectional suction, a process the frog initiates by depressing its hyoid and retracting its clavicle. The amount of entrained water the frog can ingest is related to its ability to actively increase its body ...
Four classes of arthropods each provide multiple examples, including sea spiders (with 4 to 6 leg pairs, [11] providing two examples) and pauropods (adults with 8 to 11 leg pairs, [12] providing four examples), but most of the examples listed are either millipedes (adults with 11 to 653 leg pairs) [5] [1] or centipedes (adults with 15 to 191 ...
A male common toad grasps a female with his front legs as part of the mating process. Common toads stay in amplexus for several days. As the female lays a long, double string of small black eggs , the male fertilises them with his sperm ; the gelatinous egg strings, which may contain 3000 to 6000 eggs and be 3 to 4.5 metres (10 to 15 ft) in ...
Adult western toads are preyed upon by common ravens (Corvus corax) and probably by other birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals as well. [15] [16] A badger (Taxidea taxus) was recorded as having consumed five adult Anaxyrus (probably western toad, as it was the only Anaxyrus species in the area) in Wyoming. [20]