Amphibia By: Luke & Logan

Characteristics Animalia- Multicellular, Heterotrophs, Reproduce sexually, Vertebrates Phylum- Notochord(Vertebrae), Dorsal Nervous cord(Brain stem), Pharyngeal slits(Turn into gills as fish, jaws and ears bones for birds and mammals. Present during embryonic development for birds and mammals) Class- Amphibia- Reproduce only in water, born from eggs, are herbivores, and breath though gills as young. As adults they live on land, carnivores, breath though skin and lungs. Tetrapods, ectothermic.

Life cycle

Phylogenetic Tree

Taxa of a Frog Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Amphibia Order: Anura Family: Ranidae Genus: Rana Species: pipiens = Nothern leopard frog

Taxa of a Salamander Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Amphibia Order: Caudata Family: Ambystomatidae Genus: Ambystoma Species: macrodactylum = Long-toed salamander

Taxa of a Newt Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordate Class: Amphibia Order: Caudata Family: Salamandridae Genus: Lissotriton Species: helveticus = Palmate newt

Food getting/making of Amphibians When amphibians are young and still living in water they are herbivores eating little plants in there pond or river. In the adult stage amphibians are carnivores, eating insects and invertebrates. They tend to hunt for periods of times until the find a meal. In order to catch food, amphibians use their long sticky tongs to food quickly. Some types of amphibians (especially frog and toads) use a leap tatic where they leap upon their prey very quickly and eat it quickly in one bite.

Locomotion of Amphibians Amphibians are homologous, they usually move by leaping, jumping, crawling, and swimming. They have long hind legs with powerful strong muscles. For such small creatures they actually have big muscles.

Circulation of Amphibians In the tadpole stage the circulation is similar to that of a fish, the blood is pumped through a 2 chambered heart to the gills where it is restored with oxygen and back around in one single loop. In the adult stage, amphibians lose their gills and develop lungs. Also their heart changes to 1 ventricle and 2 atrium. As the heart pumps and contracts blood with no oxygen is pumped through an artery to the lungs where it receives oxygen. Then this oxygen rich blood is pumped throughout the body.

Digestion of Amphibians When food is eaten by an amphibian it goes from its mouth to the esophagus and onto the stomach. The stomach is where the digestion begins. Here, the food now moves onto the small intestine where the nutrients are absorbed and used. It then moves to the large intestine before being eliminated from the body, finally the waste enters the cloaca before leaves the body.

Gas exchange of Amphibians During the adolescent stage of amphibians they breath oxygen through gills in water like fish. As adult amphibians they can breath using their lungs or by breathing through their skin. In order to do so they must keep their skin moist at all times, if not they cannot do so. This is called cutaneous respiration.

Excretion of Amphibians The waste within the amphibian is excreted from the blood to their kidneys, it is either ammonia or urea being excreted. If the amphibian lives in water then ammonia is being excreted, if the amphibian lives on land urea is being excreted. After being excreted by the body the waste goes to the cloaca before it leaves the body.

Interesting facts There are between 5000 to 6000 amphibians known as alive today. The largest amphibian to date is the Chinese Giant salamander, they can grow up to 5 feet long! Salamanders are voiceless creatures.

Changes in classification Many years ago there were tetrapod bony limbed finned fish (sarcopterygian) they began to evolve into land creatures, but were displaced by reptiles ad other vertebrates. Time passed and amphibians shrank in size and diversity. This gave way to subclass Lissamphibia. Tis is why there are so many different species with different sizes and statures in within the class Amphibia.

Bibliography textbook/vertebrates-29/chordates-171/characteristics-of-chordata / textbook/vertebrates-29/chordates-171/characteristics-of-chordata / s+of+amphibians&type=images s+of+amphibians&type=images Biology 11 (Text book) Reptiles# Reptiles#

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