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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]
Reptiles are tetrapod animals in the class Reptilia, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology.
While reptiles and amphibians can be quite similar externally, the French zoologist Pierre André Latreille recognized the large physiological differences at the beginning of the 19th century and split the herptiles into two classes, giving the four familiar classes of tetrapods: amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. [30]
For instance, descendants of the first reptiles include modern reptiles, mammals and birds; the agnathans have given rise to the jawed vertebrates; the bony fishes have given rise to the land vertebrates; a group of amphibians, the labyrinthodonts, have given rise to the reptiles (traditionally including the mammal-like synapsids), which in ...
Squamata is the largest order of reptiles, comprising lizards, snakes and amphisbaenians (worm lizards), which are collectively known as squamates or scaled reptiles. With over 10,000 species, [15] Approximate world distribution of snakes. Suborder Anguimorpha. Family Anguidae [16]
Synapsida [a] is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant reptiles and birds).
Non-crocodilian reptiles have 3-chambered hearts, which are less efficient because they let the two flows mix and thus send some de-oxygenated blood out to the body instead of to the lungs. Modern crocodilians' hearts are 4-chambered, but are smaller relative to body size and run at lower pressure than those of modern birds and mammals.
This is a checklist of American reptiles found in Northern America, based primarily on publications by the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR). [1] [2] [3] It includes all species of Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and the United States including recently introduced species such as chameleons, the Nile monitor, and the Burmese python.