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Reptile Notes

Explore the defining characteristics, unique adaptations, and diverse species of reptiles, from amniotic eggs to sensory capabilities and survival techniques. Learn about snakes, lizards, turtles, and more in this comprehensive guide to reptilian biology.

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Reptile Notes

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  1. Reptile Notes

  2. What do you think makes a reptile, a reptile? QUICK QUESTION #1

  3. Reptile Basics • Definition: cold-blooded vertebrates with lungs, scaly skin, and a special type of egg (amniotic) • All these adaptations allow them to spend their entire life on land

  4. The Amniotic Egg The Four Layers • Chorion: lines the shell and regulates movement of gases in and out of the shell • Yolk Sac: encloses the yolk (provides nutrients) • Amnion: encloses the fluid in which the embryo develops • Allantois: stores the embryo wastes until hatching

  5. Tuataras (Rhynchocephalia) • Tuataras are the only surviving member of this clade. • Live on small islands off the coast of New Zealand • Active at night, hunt small animals • Gland on top of their head called “the third eye” because it contains light-sensing cells • Used to determine day length, not to see

  6. Lizards and Snakes (Squamata) • Lizards have legs, clawed toes, external ears, and moveable eyelids • Snakes are legless lizards

  7. Toxins • Hemotoxins: venom proteins that destroy red blood cells and disrupt blood clotting • Neurotoxins: venom proteins that disrupt nerve transmission

  8. Alligators and Crocodiles (Crocodilia? • Alligators, crocodiles, and caimans • Live only in tropics and subtropics where weather stays warm

  9. Turtles and Tortoises (Chelonia) • Turtles live in water, tortoises live on land (generally) • 2 parts of a turtle shell: carapace (dorsal) and plastron (ventral) • Back is fused to the carapace • Tortoises can have more dome-shaped shells • If aquatic, legs have developed into flippers

  10. How do they eat? • Many reptiles, many forms of feeding from herbivorous to carnivorous

  11. Digestion and Excretion • Short, simple, and slow digestive system • Herbivours eat rocks to help break down food • “Urine” stored in cloaca • The cloaca can remove large amounts of water from “urine” and restore it to the body or use glands to excrete salt • Many reptiles excrete a nitrogen based waste in the form of uric acid rather than urine

  12. Respiration • Reptiles have lungs and inhale and exhale using various mechanisms. • Some have flaps of skin that can separate the mouth from the nasal passages…so they can breathe through their nose while their mouth is open • And some…have a special tube at the bottom of their mouth that can be extended outward so they can breathe while swallowing

  13. Internal Transport • Can be argued that they have a three or four chamber heart (both are correct) • Crocodiles have a four chambered heart. All others have a partially divided ventricle

  14. How do they survive? response • Senses are well developed • Great sense of smell…nostrils near the mouth and Jacobsen’s organ • Snakes can’t hear (no eardrum)….others have only a simple ear • Complex eyes • Heat sensing capabilities… • Some can detect warmth given off of bodies of the small animals they eat • Ectothermic: body temperature is determined by the environment • Endothermic: body temperature holds at a constant level

  15. How do they survive? Movement • Reptiles with legs have larger, stronger limbs than amphibians • Reptiles without legs move by pressing large, ventral scales against the ground by expanding and contracting muscles around their ribs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEto1-ZTbd4

  16. Explain how animals like snakes can move without legs QUICK QUESTION #2

  17. How do they Reproduce? • Most reptiles are oviparous with internal fertilization • Some lizards are ovoviviparious ~ they hold the eggs in their bodies until they hatch and then give birth to live babies

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