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Amphibians have soft bodies with thin skins, and lack claws, defensive armour, or spines. Nevertheless, they have evolved various defence mechanisms to keep themselves alive. The first line of defence in salamanders and frogs is the mucous secretion that they produce. This keeps their skin moist and makes them slippery and difficult to grip.
They have a rigid, usually spherical body bearing moveable spines, which give the class the name Echinoidea (from the Greek ἐχῖνος ekhinos 'spine'). [5] The name urchin is an old word for hedgehog , which sea urchins resemble; they have archaically been called sea hedgehogs .
Hatching takes place after 10 days of gestation; the young echidna, called a puggle, [23] [24] born larval and fetus-like, then sucks milk from the pores of the two milk patches (monotremes have no teats) and remains in the pouch for 45 to 55 days, [25] at which time it starts to develop spines. The mother digs a nursery burrow and deposits the ...
Scientists found that members of the new species are smaller than their offshore common bottlenose counterparts, eat different fish and have spines adapted to navigating the tight spaces of rivers ...
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Made of keratin and other proteins, lamprey teeth have a hollow core to give room for replacement teeth growing under the old ones. [32] Some of the original blood-feeding forms have evolved into species that feed on both blood and flesh, and some who have become specialized to eat flesh and may even invade the internal organs of the host.
In the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus described the Amphibia as: [1]. Animals that are distinguished by a body cold and generally naked; stern and expressive countenance; harsh voice; mostly lurid color; filthy odor; a few are furnished with a horrid poison; all have cartilaginous bones, slow circulation, exquisite sight and hearing, large pulmonary vessels, lobate liver ...
The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) South China giant salamander (Andrias sligoi), but this is dwarfed by prehistoric temnospondyls such as Mastodonsaurus which could reach up to 6 m (20 ft) in length. The study of amphibians is called batrachology, while the study of both reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology.