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While reptile scales use a sophisticated naming system (see figures), there has been a certain confusion because of synonymous names. For instance, the ventral scales are often called ventrals but gastrosteges is common in the older literature. In more recent publications they are often abbreviated as VSR (for ventral scale rows) or simply V. [4]
Most snakes have extra broad scales on the belly, each scale covering the belly from side to side. The scales of all reptiles have an epidermal component (what one sees on the surface), but many reptiles, such as crocodilians and turtles, have osteoderms underlying the epidermal scale.
Excluding the head, snakes have imbricate scales, overlapping like the tiles on a roof. [20] Snakes have rows of scales along the whole or part of their length and also many other specialised scales, either singly or in pairs, occurring on the head and other regions of the body.
Snakes are elongated, limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/ s ɜːr ˈ p ɛ n t iː z /). [2] Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their ...
Lizards and snakes share a movable quadrate bone, distinguishing them from the rhynchocephalians, which have more rigid diapsid skulls. [5] Some lizards such as chameleons have prehensile tails, assisting them in climbing among vegetation. [6] As in other reptiles, the skin of lizards is covered in overlapping scales made of keratin. This ...
Image credits: an1malpulse #5. Animal campaigners are calling for a ban on the public sale of fireworks after a baby red panda was thought to have died from stress related to the noise.
Squamata (/ s k w æ ˈ m eɪ t ə /, 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.
Reptiles, in the traditional sense of the term, are defined as animals that have scales or scutes, lay land-based hard-shelled eggs, and possess ectothermic metabolisms. So defined, the group is paraphyletic , excluding endothermic animals like birds that are descended from early traditionally-defined reptiles.