Reptiles

Reptiles have dry scaly skin

Reptiles are cold blooded animals that are covered with scales and/or scutes. Cold Blooded means that their bodies do not produce heat the way birds and mammals do instead reptiles become the temperature of the environment. Reptiles are diverse. Some live in water and some on land. Some like dry and some like humid environments. Some reptiles lay eggs, other species have live births.

For many millions of years reptiles “ruled the earth” during the Age of Dinosaurs in the Jurassic period 150,000,000 years ago. Something happened about 65 million years  ago that killed off all the great dinosaurs. Was it a comet hitting the earth? Or did the first mammals, which were small rat-like things, eat all the dinosaurs’ eggs? Or something else? Whatever the cause of the massive extinction of dinosaurs, today most kinds of reptiles that ever evolved are now extinct. The following four orders  of reptile survive:
* Crocodilia – Crocodiles and Alligators
* Chelonia _ Turtles
* Squamata – Lizards and Snakes
* Rhynchocephalia – The Tuatara (only on some New Zealand islands)

The world’s 8,240 species of reptiles inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The longest reptile is the Reticulated Python, reaching 33 feet in length. The smallest Reptile is possibly the Dwarf Gecko that reaches only about 1.3 inches in length.