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amphibian

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amphibian, in zoology

amphibian, in zoology, cold-blooded vertebrate vertebrate, any animal having a backbone or spinal column . Verbrates can be traced back to the Silurian period. In the adults of nearly all forms the backbone consists of a series of vertebrae.
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 animal of the class Amphibia. There are three living orders of amphibians: the frogs frog, common name for an amphibian of the order Anura. Frogs are found all over the world, except in Antarctica. They require moisture and usually live in quiet freshwater or in the woods.
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 and toads toad, name applied to certain members of the amphibian order Anura, which also includes the frog . Although there is no clear-cut distinction between toads and frogs, the name toad
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 (order Anura, or Salientia), the salamanders salamander, an amphibian of the order Urodela, or Caudata. Salamanders have tails and small, weak limbs; superficially they resemble the unrelated lizards (which are reptiles), but they are easily distinguished by their lack of scales and claws, and by their moist,
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 and newts newt, name for members of a large salamander family, widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere and including the common European salamanders. Newts are lizardlike in shape and are usually under 6 in. (15 cm) long including the slender tail.
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 (order Urodela, or Caudata), and the caecilians caecilian (sēsĭl`ēən), any of the legless, tailless tropical amphibians of the family Caecilidae.
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, or limbless amphibians (order Apoda, or Gymnophiona), a little known tropical group. Amphibians, the most primitive of the terrestrial vertebrates, are intermediate in evolutionary position between the fish fish, limbless aquatic vertebrate animal with fins and internal gills. There are three living classes of fish: the primitive jawless fishes, or Agnatha; the cartilaginous (sharklike) fishes, or Chondrichthyes; and the bony fishes, or Osteichthyes.
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 and the reptiles reptile, name for the dry-skinned, usually scaly, cold-blooded vertebrates (see Chordata ) of the order Reptilia. Reptiles are found in a variety of habitats throughout the warm and temperate regions (except on some islands), with the greatest variety in the tropics.
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. Typically they undergo a metamorphosis from an aquatic, water-breathing, limbless larva (called a tadpole) to a terrestrial or partly terrestrial, air-breathing, four-legged adult. The eggs are usually deposited in water or in a protected place where their moisture will be conserved; they have neither shells nor the sets of membranes that surround the eggs of reptiles and other higher vertebrates. Some amphibians lay their eggs in dry places, and the young undergo the larval stage within the egg, emerging as small adults; in these the eggs have evolved various protective structures. Adult amphibians differ from reptiles in having moist skins, without scales or with small, hidden scales. All living amphibians are specialized for their way of life, none representing the main amphibian stock from which the reptiles evolved. The salamanders and newts are superficially the most similar to ancestral amphibians, having long tails and front and hind legs of approximately equal size. Frogs and toads are highly modified for jumping, with large, muscular hind legs and no tails, while the caecilians have lost all external traces of limbs.

amphibian, in aviation

amphibian, in aviation: see seaplane seaplane, airplane designed to take off from and alight on water. The two most common types are the floatplane, whose fuselage is supported by struts attached to two or more pontoon floats, and the flying boat, whose boat-hull fuselage is constructed with the
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amphibian

Any member of a class (Amphibia) of cold-blooded vertebrate animals that includes more than 4,400 species in three groups: frogs and toads (order Anura), salamanders (order Caudata), and caecilians (order Apoda). Probably evolved from certain fish species of the Early Devonian period (417–391 million years ago), amphibians were the first vertebrates to move from an aquatic environment to land. Most species have an aquatic larval, or tadpole, stage that metamorphoses into a terrestrial adult, but a few species spend their entire life in water. Amphibians are found worldwide, the majority in the tropics.


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A huge, slimy amphibian it was, with toad-like body and the mighty jaws of an alligator.
Once an unwary crocodile attacked him but the sinuous trunk dove beneath the surface and grasping the amphibian about the middle dragged it to light and hurled it a hundred feet down stream.
Mauki's father was chief over the village at Port Adams, and thus, by birth a salt-water man, Mauki was half amphibian.
 
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