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Gymnophia Rafinesque, 1814. Caecilians (/ sɪˈsɪliən /; New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians.
Squamata (/ skwæˈmeɪtə /, Latin squamatus, 'scaly, having scales') is the largest order of reptiles, comprising lizards and snakes. With over 12,162 species, [3] it is also the second-largest order of extant (living) vertebrates, after the perciform fish. Squamates are distinguished by their skins, which bear horny scales or shields, and ...
The world's smallest known vertebrate, Paedophryne amauensis, sitting on a U.S. dime.The dime is 17.9 mm in diameter, for scale. The word amphibian is derived from the Ancient Greek term ἀμφίβιος (amphíbios), which means 'both kinds of life', ἀμφί meaning 'of both kinds' and βίος meaning 'life'.
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. The major differences between these two ...
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 Reptiles Portal. Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic ('cold-blooded') metabolism and amniotic development. Living reptiles comprise four orders: Testudines (turtles), Crocodilia (crocodilians), Squamata (lizards and snakes), and Rhynchocephalia (the tuatara). As of May 2023, about 12,000 living ...
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν herpetón, meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and reptiles (including snakes, lizards, amphisbaenids, turtles, terrapins, tortoises, crocodilians, and tuataras). [1 ...
The earliest known true snake fossils (members of the crown group Serpentes) come from the marine simoliophiids, the oldest of which is the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian age) Haasiophis terrasanctus from the West Bank, [1] dated to between 112 and 94 million years old. [25] Based on genomic analysis it is certain that snakes descend from lizards ...