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The bishop-fish, a piscine humanoid reported in Poland in the 16th century. Aquatic humanoids appear in legend and fiction. [1] " Water-dwelling people with fully human, fish-tailed or other compound physiques feature in the mythologies and folklore of maritime, lacustrine and riverine societies across the planet."
Some amphibian toxins can be lethal to humans while others have little effect. [65] The main poison-producing glands, the parotoids , produce the neurotoxin bufotoxin and are located behind the ears of toads, along the backs of frogs, behind the eyes of salamanders and on the upper surface of caecilians.
While the early amniotes resembled their amphibian ancestors in many respects, a key difference was the lack of an otic notch at the back margin of the skull roof. In their ancestors, this notch held a spiracle , an unnecessary structure in an animal without an aquatic larval stage. [ 25 ]
Skin breathing, known as cutaneous respiration, is common in fish and amphibians, and occur both in and out of water. In some animals waterproof barriers impede the exchange of gases through the skin. For example, keratin in human skin, the scales of reptiles, and modern proteinaceous fish scales impede the exchange of gases.
Marsupial koalas of Australia have evolved fingerprints, indistinguishable from those of non-related primates, such as humans. [14] The Australian honey possums acquired a long tongue for taking nectar from flowers, a structure similar to that of butterflies, some moths, and hummingbirds, and used to accomplish the same task. [15]
[18] [19] Tetrapods can be divided into four classes: amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Marine tetrapods are tetrapods that returned from land back to the sea again. The first returns to the ocean may have occurred as early as the Carboniferous Period [ 20 ] whereas other returns occurred as recently as the Cenozoic , as in cetaceans ...
Amphibians are in decline worldwide, with 2 out of every 5 species threatened by extinction, according to a paper published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.
Gnathostomata is traditionally an infraphylum, broken into three top-level groupings: Chondrichthyes, or the cartilaginous fish; Placodermi, an extinct grade of armored fish; and Teleostomi, which includes the familiar classes of bony fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Some classification systems have used the term Amphirhina.