It is significant to know the characteristics of amphibians, whose aspects are highly notable for the study of these amazing animals that are really of great value.
What are amphibians?
These are living beings of the land and even of the water, they are the most established terrestrial vertebrates that exist. In any case, unlike most other creatures that make up biotic schemes, land and water creatures experience a transformation during their stay in different environments, that is, a progression of morphological changes in their lives.
Consequently, the initial segment of the pattern of existence of these animals originates in the water and after the adaptation processes they move to land. This double condition is reflected in the derivation of its name: from the Greek amphi (both) and bio (life), that is, it has two unique lives.
Amphibian characteristics
Land and water creatures include the most abundant collection of vertebrates. Their alias symbolizes "double life" and they are ectothermic creatures, that is, they depend on heat principles not generated by themselves to control their internal temperature. In addition, they are anamniotes, similar to fish; This means that their budding organisms fall short of an encompassing layer: the amnion.
Skeleton and limbs of amphibians
This group of creatures has an incredible variety in terms of its skeleton and for different vertebrates there is an arrangement of bones independently. During their advancement, they have lost and adjusted numerous bones of the forelimbs, but because of the abdomen, they have undergone significant changes in their morphology.
The forelimbs have four toes and the hind limbs five, and are extended for bouncing or swimming, apart from caecilians, which have lost their hind appendages due to their fossorial lifestyle. On the other hand, depending on the species, the hind legs can be adjusted for both bouncing and swimming, as well as walking.
Types of amphibians
It is considered that this family of animals undergoes multiple changes in its morphology, really in each habitat its evolution is genuine and in each process there are perceptible modifications and with great attributes that are useful for each environment. Some of these include:
- Gymnophiona type.
- Caudata type.
- Anura type.
Zoological classification of amphibians
Creatures of this class are perceived as tetrapods (that is, they have four limbs), anamniotes (their embryos do not have a defensive film but are very thin and fragile to the touch), and undergo a transformation in their conceptual cycle of evolution. That incorporates amphibians, frogs, lizards, and cilia.
Amphibian evolution
Some suppose that they come from the collection of the temnospondyls, crude tetrapods of the carboniferous time frame, in addition to linking antecedents to numerous dinosaurs. Another assumption would make them relatives of the amphibian tetrapod lepospondyls, in addition to the Carboniferous time period, abundant in Europe and North America.
A third linkage very importantly assumes ancient legacies that were valid and preserved a reunion with species of different origins. The discussion would decide whether the class should incorporate all anamniote tetrapods, or simply living creatures of land and water, known in some texts as lissamphibians.
amphibian reproductive cycle
Due to their reproductive morphology, these land and water creatures are considered to be included in those existing lists of oviparous creatures, that is, they replicate by laying treated eggs during sexual intercourse between males and females.
As a general rule, the laying of eggs occurs among amphibians and in enormous quantities, since the incipient portals of them are many, in the case of a hatchling, its evolution is progressive, since after a while it develops and transforms its body and its physical modifications to resemble the adult become visible. At that time, it leaves the water and becomes an adult to continue the cycle.
amphibian metamorphosis
Egg-encased undeveloped organisms dominating land and water before long has provided a focus for larval structures, whose physical qualities fit the navigational condition necessary for their habitat and environment: some with long tails, lack of assistance of legs, round mouth and gills.
For an incredible duration, the hatchling becomes omnivorous until it begins its progress procedure and its legs become structured as it loses its tail. In the later stages, the body does not look exclusively adult-like in form, but the gills are lost and pneumonic respiration begins, a phase before amphibian surrender to life.
Some time later, when it is understood as a young adult, the animal on land and in water says goodbye to the water and continues with the rest of its reality as a land creature, with legs and lungs, but in general it requires a fairly long period of adaptation. long, often uses mud and ponds to submerge.
Due to the caudate creatures of land and water or gymophonians, the transformation is substantially less radical than in anurans, as fledglings and adults are considerably more comparable and adaptable to any maritime environment. The amphibian animals They are highly adaptable.
Breathing
Creatures of land and water are species of animals that breathe through gills, in its larval state and allow the passage of gases through its skin, due to its thin and porous skin. However, adults also do inhalation, and in many species they stick to the two different ways of breathing throughout their lives.
On the other hand, some types of lizards totally require lung respiration, so they use only the necessary exchange through their respiratory organs, and this collapses frequently, so they are adapted to having trouble breathing.
Feeding of amphibians
In their amphibian phase, the chicks can be herbivores or essentially feed on everything, depending on the species. Some may even police the consumption of human flesh if conditions are excessively antagonistic. They are undemanding living beings, and their diet does not correspond to a demanding nutrition regimen.
As adults, land and water creatures are mostly carnivorous, proving to be important predators for insects, arthropods, worms, and smaller land and water creatures. Their food chain consists of eating smaller animals, usually insects and pests.
amphibian skin
The competent skin on these land and water animals is one of a kind. It does not have any defensive scales, hair, or shell, is porous to water, has an exceptionally high vascular substance, and is composed mostly of organs.
Due to the nature of their body, creatures of land and water can remain moist in the terrestrial environment, as well as inhale air through their skin and not directly from a breathing apparatus, in turn they can control their level of internal heat. They are regulators of their internal temperature changes, so they have the quality of easily adapting to any environment.
In many animals of this classification, their skin, the layer of land and water creatures secretes in many cases poisonous substances that are produced as a protection mechanism and contain bright shadows exposing their poison, the most alarming colors are characteristic of poisoned skins.
The competent skin of land and water animals is usually molded through a shedding procedure, during which the creature ingests the outer layers to be shed. There is no loss of skin as in the case of snakes, really in this class of animals, the detached skin is mixed with the new one to strengthen the new protective layer.
privileged habitat
In general, creatures that live both on land and in water are favored by warm, sticky conditions on land, for example, tropical or subtropical wetlands, as long as the approach of spring is sweet and not pungent. The source of salt in the seas is excessively high and polluting for these small animals.
Anurans have the best planetary spread, even though their most prominent variety is found in the tropics, while lizards lean toward north temperate zones.
Caecilians therefore lean toward tropical heat, despite the fact that they are extremely few and unusual in appearance. The main landless and waterless districts are the driest deserts, sea islands, and arctic and antarctic sinkholes.
mythical animals
Creatures of land and water have been fascinating creatures to human culture since the days of yore, when each species was associated with the bounty and multiplication indispensable to each family, as well as with the catalytic nigredo and components in deterioration of each genre.
During the Middle Ages, they were seen as the essential elements of spells and magic, or were related to mythical trades, in which at least one of these animals was incorporated into each recipe book. Are not transgenic animals therefore, their evolutionary development is naturally guaranteed.
In the accounts of contemporary youth, the amphibian involved a focal point in fairy tales, it was in fact considered as the animal in which witches used to replace the original image of sovereigns; it was estimated that a princess kiss could remove the curse.
Lizards were also seen as legendary creatures, apparently conceived for fire or embers, or even safe for it. Having direct contact with a lizard was said to spread fever in a certain group of people. As can be seen, contact with creatures of the land and water has always been a disturbing reality for human beings.
Ecological threats of amphibians
Since 1911, the irrefutable conductors of large comprehensive studies have warned of an extreme decline in the number of land and water creatures that populate the world, which could be probably the most shocking danger to the earth's biodiversity.
Environmental change, the spraying of the natural environment and the introduction of species that abuse the evolved lifestyle are the main elements of the eradication of creatures from land and water due to man. Some of these stand out in the list of poisonous animals, their striking colors give them away when observed.
It is estimated that 85% of the well-evolved and undermined species of creatures (about 100) at the moment obtain almost zero natural securities, regardless of how 33 creatures of land and water are in the ruin of the hundred most species committed in the world, and 3 of them in the summary of the ten species in danger of annihilation of the planet.
