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A white-headed dwarf gecko with tail lost due to autotomy. Autotomy (from the Greek auto-, "self-" and tome, "severing", αὐτοτομία) or 'self-amputation', is the behaviour whereby an animal sheds or discards an appendage, [1] usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude a predator's grasp or to distract the predator and thereby allow escape.
By detaching their tails, lizards are able to flee from their predators quicker, while the thrashing of the detached tails post-autotomy serves to distract the predator and allow the lizard to successfully escape. These lizards are able to shed their tail at any point along the length of it, as most of their caudal vertebrae have fracture planes.
Common slow worms are semifossorial [2] (burrowing) lizards, spending much of their time hiding underneath objects. The skin of slow worms is smooth with scales that do not overlap one another. Like many other lizards, they autotomize, meaning that they have the ability to shed their tails to escape predators. While the tail regrows, it does ...
In lizards and rhynchocephalians, fracture planes are present within the vertebrae of the tail that allow for its removal. Some lizards have multiple fracture planes, while others just have a single fracture plane. The regrowth of the tail is not always complete and is made of a solid rod of cartilage rather than individual vertebrae. [16]
The western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) is a species of lizard native to Arizona, New Mexico, and California, as well as Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Northern Mexico. The species is widely found in its native range and is considered common, often being seen in yards, or as the name implies, on fences.
The common house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) is a gecko native to South and Southeast Asia as well as Near Oceania.It is also known as the Asian house gecko, Pacific house gecko, wall gecko, house lizard, tiktiki, chipkali [3] or moon lizard.
A dragonfly in its radical final moult, metamorphosing from an aquatic nymph to a winged adult.. In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in ...
Saururus cernuus is a herbaceous perennial that gets its most frequent common name, lizard's tail, from its white flowers that bloom in the summer months. [2] The inflorescence is usually 6 to 8 in long. [3] After floral maturity the white flowers turn brown, giving the plant its namesake, lizard's tail. [3]