What do I expect you to learn from this lecture?

• What is the structure of the amniotic egg?

• What are the advantages, and significance, of the amniotic egg?

• What is the significance of the development of crushing jaws?

• What are the three different arrangements of jaw musculature and

which groups possess each?

• What are the key characteristics of reptiles?

• Compare and contrast the four orders of reptiles.

Reptiles

Raven et al.
Chapter 34.7:
Current phylogeny of Vertebrata
 “Reptiles” are not monophyletic….
So should refer to them as nonavian reptiles
How do you get from an amphibian
to a reptile?
 Amphibians to reptiles
Reptiles:
-Amniotic egg - allows fast development of large young
in dry environments (embryo carries own water)
-Tough, scaly skin - protects from desiccation (don’t
need thin moist skin for gas exchange)
-Jaws – apply crushing or gripping force to prey (exploit
new food sources)
 Amphibians to reptiles
Reptiles:
-More efficient lungs – more surface area, little cutaneous respiration (turtles
supplement respiration through cloaca & neck skin, sea snakes through skin)
-Efficient circulation - very little mixing of oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood
(turtles, lizards, snakes 3-chambered heart; crocodiles 4 chambered-heart)

-Excrete nitrogenous waste as uric acid – solid droppings to conserve water

(metanephric kidney)

-More complex nervous system – better vision

 Frog or fish eggs (in water)

No problem with collapse – supported by water

No problem with desiccation – in water
No problem with waste disposal – can be released into water
No problem with gas exchange – touching water (contains 02)
Still needs food - yolk

In all terrestrial vertebrates, starting with reptiles

• Egg is provided with own aqueous environment
• No larvae
But problems faced by terrestrial eggs:

- Need shell (to prevent desiccation or collapse)

- Makes waste disposal difficult – where to put toxic
waste when enclosed in small space?
- Trouble with gas exchange – no longer in contact
with 02
- Trouble obtaining food
A truly terrestrial egg
must have:
Protection from
desiccation
A place to store
wastes
A gas exchange
mechanism
Food storage
 The Amniotic Egg

Egg shell
 Amniotic egg
Shell and shell membrane
- Provide physical support
- Protect embryo from desiccation
- Slightly porous to permit gas exchange
- Note: many lizards, snakes and most
mammals’ eggs lack hard shell

- Extra-embryonic membranes
- Amnion, allantois, chorion, yolk sac
- Not part of embryo
- Drop off when no longer useful
Extra-embryonic membranes:
Yolk sac
evolved millions of years before amniotic egg
obvious in fish embryos; food storage for
embryo

Amnion
fluid-filled sac surrounding
the embryo
protection from
desiccation and shocks
Extra-embryonic membranes:

Allantois
enlarged bladder – grows out of hindgut
collects N wastes from metabolism of yolk
allows C02 to diffuse out and 02 to diffuse in

Chorion
outer membrane; encloses
the whole embryo
fuses with allantois – better
diffusion of gases
 Aquatic embryos – provided Terrestrial embryos –
Embryos need
by provided by

Support water shell

water
Protection from desiccation shell, amnion, chorion

water
Gas exchange allantois, chorion

water allantois, chorion

Waste disposal

yolk yolk in yolk sac

Food feeding as larvae placenta

Textbook Chapter 52.15

Amniotic egg – critical in
evolution of terrestrial animals
Characteristic of all reptiles, birds, mammals
(but variations)
See Raven pg 1168 - evolution of amniotic egg

Eutherian mammals (e.g. humans)

embryonic organisation is homologous

amnion, chorion, allantois retained inside

mother

perform similar functions of waste storage and

gas exchange
 Consequence of shelled egg
Enclosed egg must be produced before being laid
Fertilisation must be internal
Males have copulatory organs or other method of
introducing the sperm into the female’s body
Text Fig 52.5 – Association between internal fertilization & viviparity
 Skin - scales
- Beta keratin – very tough - body covered with scales or bony
plates
- Skin has few glands (contrast amphibia
and mammalia)
- Protects against moisture loss
Also against injury
- Chromatophores – colour!
- Epidermal scales (not homologous to fish scales)
- Crocodile scales grow throughout life
- Snakes and lizards shed skin – grow new epidermis beneath old
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUsARF-CBcI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtaIqahi3I General on chameleons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQggDnScsvI Mechanics of colour change
 Jaws
- Amphibian and fish jaws made for rapid closure, not crushing prey
- Reptiles - first to develop strong, crushing jaws, allows much greater variety in
diet
- Jaw musculature:
- for crushing, jaws need appropriate musculature
- holes in skull allow muscles to (i) bulge, (ii) attach to the skull?
 Holes in the skull

ORBIT - ‘eye socket’

Temporal Openings

NOSTRIL
Holes in the skull - May have evolved to provide space
in the skull for the muscles to expand
during contraction

- Possibly the rims of the fenestrae

offer a more secure attachment

- Whatever the origin of the openings,

they certainly now provide sites for
muscle attachment
Three different arrangements of jaw muscles:

Anapsid – no holes
- Turtles - deep emarginations (notches) or primitive
condition

Synapsid – one hole

- Mammal-like reptiles (extinct) dinosaurs that eventually gave

rise to mammals
- Modern mammals may have lost this 2°

Diapsid – two holes

- Lizards, snakes, crocodiles and birds
26-24
Limbs
- if present, paired, usually
pentadactyl
- some have evolved loss of limbs,
especially snakes and lizards Sidewinder
- associated with elongation –
crawling along the ground, easier
to use curves of body to push
against things on the ground
Ribs
- amphibians have reduced ribs
- reptiles have whole thorax enclosed
in a bony basket

Sidewinding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r3W-Atkt5E
Gas exchange
- use lungs – no cutaneous
respiration (cf. amphibians)
- Rib ventilation of lungs
- turtles supplement respiration
through cloaca & neck skin
- Sea snakes supplement
respiration through skin
Metanephric kidney
- excrete solid waste (uric acid – white stuff)
- excellent water conservation
- New origin from in fish & frogs, added to “older” kidneys
 Modern reptiles

• Order Rhyncocephalia: tuatara (NZ only)

• Order Crocodylia: crocodiles & alligators

• Order Chelonia: turtles & tortoises

• Order Squamata: snakes & lizards

Order Rhyncocephalia – the tuatara
• Sister group to squamates
• Only in NZ – 3 species
• Parietal eye (squamates too)
• Oviparous
• Low preferred temperature
 Diapsid

Strange double row of upper teeth

Order Crocodylia – alligators and crocodiles

- 25 spp, aquatic, up to 1000kg

- Tropical “living dinosaurs” (unchanged ~ 200 MYA)
- Part of lineage that gave rise to birds
- Complex social behaviour
- Temperature dependent sex determination (TSD)

Predators
- massive jaw musculature for rapid closure & holding on
- eat large prey
- complete secondary palate (allows breathing when
mouth full of food)
Order Chelonia – turtles, tortoises, terrapins
• 330 spp, freshwater, oceans & terrestrial
• Temperate and tropical
• Evolved around 200 MYA; little change
• Characterised by carapace (dorsal) & plastron (ventral)
• Restricted by carapace – no fast runners or tree climbers
• Many can withdraw head & limbs into shell
• Horny beak, no teeth
• Usually make migrations to breed (incl. freshwater turtles)
• All oviparous
• Also some TSD
Order Squamata – lizards & snakes

- 95% of living reptiles; recent & hugely successful

group
- 5800 spp; mainly predators
- Aquatic & terrestrial
- Robust limbs or elongation and loss of limbs
- Kinetic skull – disconnect entire skull to eat large
prey
- Some with TSD
- Both oviparity and viviparity
- Venom in some snakes
Sensory system
- Eyesight
- Poor in snakes (except arboreal)
- Day or night vision in lizards
- Hearing
- Snakes deaf
- External ear in lizards
- Important for geckos
- Snakes rely heavily on chemical cues
- forked tongue
- Pit organs (vipers)
- heat sensitive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE_fZNZjJcQ
Thermoregulation
 Why thermoregulate?
- Biochemical reactions – extremely temperature sensitive
- Body temperature must remain between ~ 0 °C and 40 °C
(homeostasis)
- Optimum body temperature varies among groups

- Body temp too low: metabolism slows, energy reduced

- Body temp too high: enzyme function destroyed, proteins denature
 How?
To control body temperature animals must
find habitat that provides desired temperature

Or

maintain body temperature independent of environmental temperature

 “Correct” Terms: Ectothermic & Endothermic

• Ectothermic: body
temperature
determined solely by
environment (most
animals)

• Endothermic: majority
of body heat obtained
internally -from
production of metabolic
heat (birds, mammals, a
few fish, a few reptiles)
Ectotherm (snake) vs. endotherm (mouse)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZkF6yUMmiA 2:09
 Ectotherms
• Most animals are ectotherms: low heat production, high heat loss
• Many live in environments with little temperature fluctuation (e.g.
aquatic)
• May have to spend long periods inactive (no problem – have low
metabolic rate)

• Can’t control body temperature physiologically, but can regulate

temperature behaviourally
In the lab….

But in the wild….

Actual lizard temperature over the day:
 How do they do that?
• Find places and times when temperature is OK; avoid
places and times where undesirable temperatures are
reached

• Can adjust behaviour often to keep body

temperature relatively constant
Desert lizards

Air temperature: 29 – 44 °C; body temperature 36 – 39 °C

Basking
Temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD)

• Sex is often genetically determined (e.g. X/Y chromosome system)

• In some reptiles, average incubation temperature of eggs during
2nd trimester determines sex!

Freshwater crocodile
o
• < 30 C all females
o
• 30-32 C some males
o
• > 32 C all females

• The pattern of temperature fluctuation

probably important too