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The skull of a snake differs from a lizards in several ways. Snakes have more flexible jaws, that is, instead of a juncture at the upper and lower jaw, the snake's jaws are connected by a bone hinge that is called the quadrate bone. Between the two halves of the lower jaw at the chin there is an elastic ligament that allows for a separation.
A = Anapsid, B = Synapsid, C = Diapsid. It was traditionally assumed that first reptiles were anapsids, having a solid skull with holes only for the nose, eyes, spinal cord, etc.; [10] the discoveries of synapsid-like openings in the skull roof of the skulls of several members of Parareptilia, including lanthanosuchoids, millerettids, bolosaurids, some nycteroleterids, some procolophonoids and ...
Snakes were regularly regarded as guardians of the Underworld or messengers between the Upper and Lower worlds, because they lived in cracks and holes in the ground. The Gorgons of Greek myth were snake-women (a common hybrid) whose gaze would turn flesh into stone, the most famous of them being Medusa. [18]
Pelvic spurs (also known as vestigial legs) are external protrusions found around the cloaca in certain superfamilies of snakes belonging to the greater infraorder Alethinophidia. [1] These spurs are made up of the remnants of the femur bone, which is then covered by a corneal spur, or claw-like structure. [ 1 ]
Early pterosaurs have long been considered particularly cumbersome locomotors due to the presence of large cruropatagia, but they too appear to have been generally efficient on the ground. [ 143 ] The forelimb bones of azhdarchids and ornithocheirids were unusually long compared to other pterosaurs, and, in azhdarchids, the bones of the arm and ...
Why did it have to be snakes?” The reptile, christened Tachymenoides harrisonfordi, measures 16 inches long and is a pale yellowish-brown colour with black spots and a black belly.
How the Snake Lost Its Legs: Curious Tales from the Frontier of Evo-Devo is a 2014 book on evolutionary developmental biology by Lewis I. Held, Jr. The title pays homage to Rudyard Kipling 's Just So Stories , [ 1 ] [ a ] but the "tales" are strictly scientific, explaining how a wide range of animal features evolved, in molecular detail.
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