[农学]第五章、爬行纲.ppt

第五章、爬行纲 爬行动物：是真正的陆生动物，身体外被角质鳞片或革质皮肤，在陆地上繁殖的脊椎动物。 THE REPTILES PHYLUM CHORDATA CLASS REPTILIA Reptiles are the first truly terrestrial vertebrates. With some 6,000 species (about 300 species in the United States and Canada) occupying a great variety of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, they are clearly a successful group. Nevertheless, reptiles are perhaps remembered best for what they once were, rather than for what they presently are. The Age of Dinosaurs(恐龙), which lasted 100 million years encompassing the Jurassic（侏罗纪） and Cretaceous（白垩纪） periods, saw the appearance of a great radiation of reptiles, many of huge stature（身材） and awesome（可怕） appearance, that completely dominated（支配） life on land. Then they suddenly declined（灭绝）. Out of the dozen or so principal groups of reptiles that evolved, four remain today. The most successful of these are the lizards（蜥蜴） and snakes of the order Squamata（有鳞目）. A second group is the crocodilians（鳄鱼）: having survived for 200 million years, they may finally be made extinct by man. To a third group belongs to the tortoises and turtles of the order Testudines（龟鳖目）, an ancient group that has somehow survived and remained mostly unchanged from its early reptile ancestors. The last group is a relic stock represented today by a sole survivor, the tuatara（大蜥蜴） of New Zealand. Reptiles are easily distinguished from amphibians by their scaly hide（皮）, which resists desiccation(干燥). But more than any other single aspect, reptiles are set apart from amphibians by their method of reproduction. Reptiles lay eggs on land: amphibians must lay their eggs in water. This seemingly simple difference was in fact a remarkable evolutionary achievement that was to have a profound impact（效果） on subsequent vertebrate evolution. As we have seen, the amphibians are basically aquatic animals by virtue of their reproduction. To totally abandon（遗弃） an aquatic life, there evolved a sophisticated internally-fertilized egg containing a complete set of life-s