Whois & Analysis for undergroundreptiles.com

Reptiles are tetrapod (four-limbed vertebrate) animals in the class Reptilia, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives.

The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology.

Amphibians are ectothermic, tetrapod vertebrates of the class Amphibia.

Modern amphibians are all Lissamphibia.

They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems.

Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this.

The young generally undergo metamorphosis from larva with gills to an adult air-breathing form with lungs.

Amphibians use their skin as a secondary respiratory surface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skin.

They are superficially similar to lizards but, along with mammals and birds, reptiles are amniotes and do not require water bodies in which to breed.

With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often ecological indicators; in recent decades there has been a dramatic decline in amphibian populations for many species around the globe.

Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia (from Latin "breast"), a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles (including birds) by the possession of a neocortex (a region of the brain), hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands.

All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands.

Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 6,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains.

The group is paraphyletic as it excludes the snakes which are also squamates.