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The skin (integument) is a composite organ, made up of at least two major layers of tissue: the epidermis and the dermis. [2] The epidermis is the outermost layer, providing the initial barrier to the external environment. It is separated from the dermis by the basement membrane (basal lamina and reticular lamina).
Osteoderms represent hard tissue components of the integument, making them easy to identify in fossil examination. [2] This dermal armor is found prominently in many lizards. Some early amphibians have this armor, but it is lost in modern species with the exception a ventral plate, called the gastralia .
Its purpose is to attach the skin to underlying bone and muscle as well as supplying it with blood vessels and nerves. It consists of loose connective tissue, adipose tissue and elastin. The main cell types are fibroblasts, macrophages and adipocytes (subcutaneous tissue contains 50% of body fat). Fat serves as padding and insulation for the body.
However, the structure of the skin has evolved to aid animals in their different modes of locomotion. Soft bodied animals such as starfish rely on the arrangement of the fibers in their tube feet for movement. Eels, snakes, and fish use their skin like an external tendon to generate the propulsive forces need for undulatory locomotion.
The word skin originally only referred to dressed and tanned animal hide and the usual word for human skin was hide. Skin is a borrowing from Old Norse skinn "animal hide, fur", ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *sek-, meaning "to cut" (probably a reference to the fact that in those times animal hide was commonly cut off to be used as garment).
Discarded exoskeleton of dragonfly nymph Exoskeleton of cicada attached to a Tridax procumbens (colloquially known as the tridax daisy)An exoskeleton (from Greek έξω éxō "outer" [1] and σκελετός skeletós "skeleton" [2] [3]) is a skeleton that is on the exterior of an animal in the form of hardened integument, which both supports the body's shape and protects the internal organs ...
The subcutaneous tissue (from Latin subcutaneous ' beneath the skin '), also called the hypodermis, hypoderm (from Greek ' beneath the skin '), subcutis, or superficial fascia, [2] is the lowermost layer of the integumentary system in vertebrates. [3]
The dermis is composed of three major types of cells: [3] fibroblasts, macrophages, and mast cells.. Apart from these cells, the dermis is also composed of matrix components such as collagen (which provides strength), elastin (which provides elasticity), and extrafibrillar matrix, an extracellular gel-like substance primarily composed of glycosaminoglycans (most notably hyaluronan ...