Ads
related to: reptile skin
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Reptile skin is covered with scutes or scales which, along with many other characteristics, distinguish reptiles from animals of other classes. They are made of alpha and beta-keratin and are formed from the epidermis (contrary to fish, in which the scales are formed from the dermis ).
A shed skin is much longer than the snake that shed it, as the skin covers the top and bottom of each scale. If the skin is shed intact, each scale is unwrapped on the top and bottom side of the scale which almost doubles the length of the shed skin. While a snake is in the process of shedding the skin over its eye, the eye may become milky.
Snake scales are formed by the differentiation of the snake's underlying skin or epidermis. [7] Each scale has an outer surface and an inner surface. The skin from the inner surface hinges back and forms a free area which overlaps the base of the next scale which emerges below this scale. [8] A snake hatches with a fixed number of scales.
The fragment of fossilized reptile skin was found in a limestone cave in Oklahoma, United States, and is at least 130 million years older than the oldest previously known skin fossil.
Skin of a sand lizard, showing squamate reptiles iconic scales. Reptilian skin is covered in a horny epidermis, making it watertight and enabling reptiles to live on dry land, in contrast to amphibians. Compared to mammalian skin, that of reptiles is rather thin and lacks the thick dermal layer that produces leather in mammals. [97]
The scales of all reptiles have an epidermal component (what one sees on the surface), but many reptiles, such as crocodilians and turtles, have osteoderms underlying the epidermal scale. Such scales are more properly termed scutes. Snakes, tuataras and many lizards lack osteoderms. All reptilian scales have a dermal papilla underlying the ...