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Semiaquatic
In biology, being semi-aquatic refers to various macroorganisms that live regularly in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. When referring to animals, the term describes those that actively spend part of their daily time in water (in which case they can also be called amphibious), or land animals that have spent at least one life stages (e.g. as eggs or larvae) in aquatic environments. When referring to plants, the term describes land plants whose roots have adapted well to tolerate regular, prolonged submersion in water, as well as emergent and (occasionally) floating-leaved aquatic plants that are only partially immersed in water. Examples of semi-aquatic animals and plants are given below. Semiaquatic animals Semiaquatic animals include: * Vertebrates ** Amphibious fish; also several types of normally fully aquatic fish such as the grunion and plainfin midshipman that spawn in the intertidal zone ** Some amphibians such as newts and salamanders, and some fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amphibian
Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excluding the amniotes (tetrapods with an amniotic membrane, such as modern reptiles, birds and mammals). All extant taxon, extant (living) amphibians belong to the monophyletic subclass (biology), subclass Lissamphibia, with three living order (biology), orders: Anura (frogs and toads), Urodela (salamanders), and Gymnophiona (caecilians). Evolved to be mostly semiaquatic, amphibians have adapted to inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living in freshwater ecosystem, freshwater, wetland or terrestrial ecosystems (such as riparian woodland, fossorial and even arboreal habitats). Their biological life cycle, life cycle typically starts out as aquatic animal, aquatic larvae with gills known as tadpoles, but some species have devel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough skin texture due to wart-like parotoid glands tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal and purely cosmetic, not from taxonomy (biology), taxonomy or evolutionary history. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest and associated wetlands. They account for around 88% of extant amphibian species, and are one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar (250Myr, million years ago), but molecular clock, molecular clock dating suggests their divergent evolution, divergence from other amphibians may exte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aquatic Animal
An aquatic animal is any animal, whether vertebrate or invertebrate, that lives in a body of water for all or most of its lifetime. Aquatic animals generally conduct gas exchange in water by extracting dissolved oxygen via specialised respiratory system, respiratory organ (biology), organs called gills, cutaneous respiration, through the skin or enteral respiration, across enteral mucosae, although some are evolution, evolved from terrestrial ancestors that re-adaptation, adapted to aquatic environments (e.g. marine reptiles and marine mammals), in which case they actually use lungs to breathing, breathe air and are essentially apnea, holding their breath when living in water. Some species of gastropod mollusc, such as the Elysia chlorotica, eastern emerald sea slug, are even capable of kleptoplastic photosynthesis via endosymbiosis with ingested yellow-green algae. Almost all aquatic animals reproduce in water, either oviparously or viviparously, and many species routinely fish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crocodilian
Crocodilia () is an Order (biology), order of semiaquatic, predatory reptiles that are known as crocodilians. They first appeared during the Late Cretaceous and are the closest living relatives of birds. Crocodilians are a type of crocodylomorph pseudosuchian, a subset of archosaurs that appeared about 235 million years ago and were the only survivors of the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. While other crocodylomorph groups further survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, notably sebecosuchians, only the crocodilians have survived into the Quaternary. The order includes the crocodile, true crocodiles (Family (biology), family Crocodylidae), the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), and the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae). Although the term "crocodiles" is sometimes used to refer to all of these families, the term "crocodilians" is less ambiguous. Extant crocodilians have flat heads with long snouts and tails that are compressed on the si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Land Animal
Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g. cats, chickens, ants, most spiders), as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water (e.g. fish, lobsters, octopuses), and semiaquatic animals, which rely on both aquatic and terrestrial habitats (e.g. platypus, most amphibians). Some groups of insects are terrestrial, such as ants, butterflies, earwigs, cockroaches, grasshoppers and many others, while other groups are partially aquatic, such as mosquitoes and dragonflies, which pass their larval stages in water. Alternatively, terrestrial is used to describe animals that live on the ground, as opposed to arboreal animals that live in trees. Ecological subgroups The term "terrestrial" is typically applied to species that live primarily on or in the ground, in contrast to arboreal species, who live primarily in trees, even though the latter are actually a specialized subgroup of the terrestrial fauna. There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Land Plant
The embryophytes () are a clade of plants, also known as Embryophyta (Plantae ''sensu strictissimo'') () or land plants. They are the most familiar group of photoautotrophs that make up the vegetation on Earth's dry lands and wetlands. Embryophytes have a common ancestor with green algae, having emerged within the Phragmoplastophyta clade of freshwater charophyte green algae as a sister taxon of Charophyceae, Coleochaetophyceae and Zygnematophyceae. Embryophytes consist of the bryophytes and the polysporangiophytes. Living embryophytes include hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms (flowering plants). Embryophytes have biological life cycle, diplobiontic life cycles. The embryophytes are informally called "land plants" because they thrive primarily in Terrestrial ecosystem, terrestrial habitats (despite aquatic plant, some members having evolved secondarily to live once again in semiaquatic/aquatic habitats), while the related green algae ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reptile
Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocephalia. About 12,000 living species of reptiles are listed in the Reptile Database. The study of the traditional reptile orders, customarily in combination with the study of modern amphibians, is called herpetology. Reptiles have been subject to several conflicting Taxonomy, taxonomic definitions. In Linnaean taxonomy, reptiles are gathered together under the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), which corresponds to common usage. Modern Cladistics, cladistic taxonomy regards that group as Paraphyly, paraphyletic, since Genetics, genetic and Paleontology, paleontological evidence has determined that birds (class Aves), as members of Dinosauria, are more closely related to living crocodilians than to other reptiles, and are thus nested among re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wood Frog
''Lithobates sylvaticus'' or ''Rana sylvatica'', commonly known as the wood frog, is a frog species that has a broad distribution over North America, extending from the boreal forest of the north to the southern Appalachians, with several notable disjunct populations including lowland eastern North Carolina. The wood frog has garnered attention from biologists because of its freeze tolerance, relatively great degree of terrestrialism (for a ranid), interesting habitat associations (peat bogs, vernal pools, uplands), and relatively long-range movements. The ecology and conservation of the wood frog has attracted research attention in recent years because they are often considered "obligate" breeders in ephemeral wetlands (sometimes called " vernal pools"), which are themselves more imperiled than the species that breed in them. The wood frog has been proposed to be the official state amphibian of New York. Description Wood frogs range from in length. Females are larger tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire-bellied Toad
The fire-bellied toads are a group of six species of small frogs (most species typically no longer than ) belonging to the genus ''Bombina''. The name "fire-bellied" is derived from the brightly colored red- or yellow-and-black patterns on the toads' ventral regions, which act as aposematic coloration, a warning to predators of the toads' reputedly foul taste. The other parts of the toads' skins are green or dark brown. When confronted with a potential predator, these toads commonly engage in an unkenreflex, ''Unken-'' being the combining form of ''Unke'', German for fire-bellied toad. In the unkenreflex, the toad arches its back, raising its front and back legs to display the aposematic coloration of its ventral side. Species The currently recognized species are: Biology The female of the species typically lays 80–300 eggs that can be found hanging off plant stems. The offspring develop in pools or puddles. Their metamorphosis is complete within a few weeks, peaking in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salamander
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the order Urodela, the sole surviving order from the group Caudata. ''Urodela'' is a scientific Latin term based on the Ancient Greek : ourà dēlē "conspicuous tail". ''Caudata'' is the Latin for "tailed ones", from : "tail". Salamander diversity is highest in eastern North America, especially in the Appalachian Mountains; most species are found in the Holarctic realm, with some species present in the Neotropical realm. Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, damp places. So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intertidal Zone
The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of habitats with various species of life, such as sea stars, sea urchins, and many species of coral with regional differences in biodiversity. Sometimes it is referred to as the ''littoral zone'' or '' seashore'', although those can be defined as a wider region. The intertidal zone also includes steep rocky cliffs, sandy beaches, bogs or wetlands (e.g., vast mudflats). This area can be a narrow strip, such as in Pacific islands that have only a narrow tidal range, or can include many meters of shoreline where shallow beach slopes interact with high tidal excursion. The peritidal zone is similar but somewhat wider, extending from above the highest tide level to below the lowest. Organisms in the intertidal zone are well-adapted to their environment, facing high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
