Amniotes: Turtles and Tuataras

• Important things to know about Amniotes
• Part of the vertebrate family.
• Amniote: Animals with a self-contained egg.
• Synapsid: Animals with one hole behind each eye; mammals.
• Diapsid: Animals with two holes behind each eye; lepidosaurs, archosaurs.

Turtles (Chelonia)

• Internal fertilization.
• Lay eggs on land.
• Prefer to be alone.
• Long lifespan.
• Omnivores with a beak.
• Cannot fully retract into their shell.
• Eggs develop in the shell, then are put on land, incubated and hatch without parental care.
• TSD (temperature-dependent sex determination) is used to determine the sex; 32°C = female, 28°C = male.
• The shell is for protection and encloses the insides.
• Turtles cannot breathe normally, it requires muscle contraction.
• Green Sea Turtles can't breathe and move at the same time while retracted.

Tuataras (Sphenodonta)

• Lizard-like with differences.
• Two species, very endangered.
• New Zealand Islands.
• Diapsid skull.
• Fully developed parietal eye.
• Cloacal fertilization.
• TSD also used.
• Lay eggs on land.
• Diapsid: 2 openings (temporal fenestrae) behind the eye sockets on each side.
• Synapsid: 1 single opening (temporal fenestrae) behind the eye sockets on each side.
• Anapsid: No temporal fenestrae; most likely turtles.

Snakes (Squamata)

• Many teeth.
• Kinetic skulls (help with feeding).
• All snakes are predatory.
• Internal fertilization.
• Powerful eyes.
• Chemoreception.
• Heat sensory pit organs.
• Jacobson organ.
• Venomous saliva.
• Hooding and death feigning are used for defense.
• Some nocturnal.
• Ectothermic.
• Carnivores.
• Powerful digestion.
• Glottis helps snakes breathe during feeding.
• Caudal luring for feeding.
• Good locomotion, based on the number of legs.
• Male-to-male combat during mating is common.
• After nest brooding, parental care is not seen.
• Reproduction with hemipenes.
• Parthenogenesis and pseudocopulation.

Lizards

• Diurnal or nocturnal.
• Ectothermic.
• Lizards take in heat and produce it back out.
• Skin shedding.
• Kinetic skulls.
• Many teeth.
• Powerful digestion.
• Camo and crypsis.
• Spines armor plating.
• Jettison tail regrows later.
• Skin sloughing in geckos.
• Powerful eyes.
• Chemoreception.
• Jacobson's organ.
• Heat sensory pits.
• Venomous saliva.
• Locomotion depends on the number of legs.
• Specialized toes/feet.
• May glide, ocean-going.
• Lizards fight, frills.
• Blood squirting in Phrynosoma.
• Sexual dimorphism/dichromatism.

Bird Features

• Skeletal Fusions:
• Furculum: fused collarbones.
• Carpometacarpus: fused wrist/digits.
• Tibiotarsus: fused tibia & foot bones.
• Tarsometatarsus: fused lower bones of foot.
• Synsacrum: fused lumbar, sacral, caudal vertebrae.
• Respiratory (Aves): -- Pneumatization
• First inhale: air moves through/past lungs to posterior air sacs.
• First exhale: air moves to lung tissue.
• Second inhale: waste air moves to anterior air sacs.
• Second exhale: waste air leaves the body; anterior air sacs go to the trachea.
• Muscles:
• Breast muscles take more than 25% of mass.
• Feet will tell you about diet, behavior, and ecology.
• Toes will describe locomotion.
• May hop, run, swim, climb, or fly.
• Communication:
• Social interactions driven by sexual selection/mate choice.
• Plumage/Coloration = mating success.
• Patterns/Courtship:
  • Intense intensity/duration of call = mating success.
  • Sexual dimorphism/dichromatism = mating success rewards.

Crocodilia (Archosaurs)

• Also known as crocodiles, alligators, caiman, gharials.
• Sister to birds.
• Semi-aquatic
• Ambush prey
• Lay eggs on land.
• Scaly reptiles.
• Thecodont teeth.
• Osteoderm in skin.
• Diapsid.
• Powerful jaw.
• Vocal.

Extant Crocodilia

• Diapsid
• Top carnivores
• Can live long
• Alligators stay in South America, Texas, Florida.
• Crocodile stay in South Africa, Mexico, India, top of Australia.
• Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus): largest extant reptile/terrestrial predator.
• Keystone species.
• Riparian: live along the water body banks.
• Bulls communicate with loud deep bellows to mark territory or female during mating, females are attracted to the bellow.
• Males fight.
• Excellent swimmers (tail is muscular).
• Excellent fast runners (bad stamina).
• Incubation & Chromosomes determine sex.
• Females may hear their young calling in the egg
• Mothers stay with their young until 1-2 feet long.
• Excellent vision night/day.
• ISO (integumentary sense organs) enables sensing pressure change, salinity, prey.

Birds (Aves)

• Diapsid
• Sister to Crocodilia
• Mass KT Extinction Event--Monogamous
• Happened 65mya
• Killed most dinosaur lineages
• Birds were present 100mya before KT
• Found everywhere
• Characteristics include: -Horizontal posture -Keel on sternum -Reduced tail -Wings -Digitigrade foot -Paedomorphic Skull -Hard Shells -Beaks without teeth -Claws
• Threats: noise/flight pollution, diet changes, human consumption, climate change and zoonotic disease
• Other Features ;Binocular Color Vision, Assymetric Skull, Fusion of Long Bones, Furcula, Past cranial pneumatization, Folding Wrists, Unicate processes on ribs and covered in Feathers

Feathers

• May change seasonally
• Location on body shows function
• Made from protein beta-keratin
• Used to ID

Bird Features

• Fly fast to drag and resist matter
• Reduce weight internally i.e. skeletally
• Hollow bones
• Reduce ovary #
• No urinary bladder , Small gonads (no phallus)
• Use magnetorecepting/light/Sky/sun to find their way

Eggs

• Altricial: Born immature & require care
• Precocial: Capable and can secure care after birth
• ZZ= male
• ZW= female

Monotremes

• 5 extant species (in Australia/New Guinea)
• Lay eggs
• Lactate, without nipples
• Duckbill or long sticky tongues
• Platypus = venomous spurs (duck billed)
• Echidnas = Spiny, land wanderers (looking for termites/ants)
• Has lock spines
• Aquatic with electroreceptors
• Territorial, males venom spurs

Marsupials

• Think pouches and Diapause
• 350 pouched species

Group include

• Kangaroos / wallabies
• Macropods
• Cherbarvors
• Under pentapedal locomotion (bounding/hopping)

Other Marsupial groups

• Possums i primary in US and Australia
• Bandicoots & bilbies- terrestrial diggers & threatened
• Diprotodontia (woombats, koalas)
• Dasyuromorphs (carnivores)
• Part of GABintercharge