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Diagram of a prawn, with the carapace highlighted in red. A carapace is a dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tortoises, the underside is called the plastron.
An adult salamander generally resembles a small lizard, having a basal tetrapod body form with a cylindrical trunk, four limbs, and a long tail. Except in the family Salamandridae, the head, body, and tail have a number of vertical depressions in the surface which run from the mid-dorsal region to the ventral area and are known as costal ...
Scales may be piliform (hairlike) or flattened. The body or "blade" of a typical flattened scale consists of an upper and lower lamella with an air space in between. The surface towards the body is smooth and known as the inferior lamella. The upper surface, or superior lamella, has transverse and longitudinal ridges and ribs.
Lizard morphological and ecological diversity substantially increased over the course of the Cretaceous. [56] In the Palaeogene, lizard body sizes in North America peaked during the middle of the period. [57] Mosasaurs likely evolved from an extinct group of aquatic lizards [58] known as aigialosaurs in the Early Cretaceous.
Varanus varius has the typical body built of a true monitor True monitors are characterized by their wide skulls and strong jaws, with the nostrils cranially positioned on the sides of their snout. Their teeth are curved, serrated and concealed by thick lips, making them invisible even if their mouths are open.
The lingual (tongue) side of pleurodont teeth are not attached to bone, and instead are typically held in place by connective ligaments. This contrasts with thecodont implantation, in which the teeth are set in sockets and surrounded by bone on all sides. [2] [3] [4]
Skull diagram in top down and side-on views. Unlike the vast majority of lizards, the tuatara has a complete lower temporal bar closing the lower temporal fenestra (an opening of the skull behind the eye socket), caused by the fusion of the quadrate/quadratojugal (which are fused into a single element in adult tuatara) and the jugal bones of ...
In many cases the cast skin peels backward over the body from head to tail, in one piece like an old sock. A new, larger, and brighter layer of skin has formed underneath. [ 5 ] [ 7 ] An older snake may shed its skin only once or twice a year, but a younger snake that is still growing may shed up to four times a year.