REPTILES
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REPTILES
Origins. Characteristics. Habitat. Tortoises and turtles, tuatara, crocodiles and lizards.
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INTRODUCTION
Reptiles’ main features.
Their adaptation to the medium where they live.
Some reptiles have powerful poisons.
Reptiles and the popular imagination.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
Reptiles are vertebrated animals with variable temperatures.
Some reptiles have their bodies covered with scales and have very few glands.
Turtles and tortoises.
Some reptiles have the ability to change colour (camouflage). Chameleons.
With the exception of snakes, reptiles have 4 legs adapted according to their different needs of locomotion.
Turtles have converted their extremities into fins.
Reptiles are oviparous.
There are vegetarian reptiles and carnivorous reptiles.
Their sensory capacity varies greatly from one species to another.
Snakes’ palates and their sense of sight.
Some rattle-snakes posses a special sensibility to heat.
ORIGINS
The very first reptiles made their appearance around 320 million years ago.
They descended from amphibians.
They became independant from a water-environment that let to a great diversity of species.
The first reptiles: the Saurischia,
Reptiles diversify themselves greatly during the Secondary Era.
Their evolution gave way to birds and mammals.
Many million years ago, there occurred a massive extinction of approximately two thirds of all life on Earth and those gigantic reptiles which dominated the Earth were killed.
VARIETY
There exist more than 6,000 species of reptiles.
There are four groups: Chelonia, Schemata, Crocodilia and Saurischia.
Characteristics of Chelonia.
Characteristics of Tuatara.
Characteristics of Crocodiles.
Characteristics of Schemata. The Komodo Dragron
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