Sternoptyges
Table of Contents
(2) An opercule over the gills but no membrane.
STERNOPTYGES
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Sternoptyx
(3) No opercule over the gills, but a membrane
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Mormyrus Stylophorus
(4) No operculum nor membrane over the gills; no paired lower fins
OPHICHTHIANS
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Unibranch aperture Sphagebranchus
Murenophis Gymnomuraena
Since the skeleton started to form itself in the fish, those called cartilaginous are probably the least perfected fish, and consequently the most imperfect of all must be the gasterobranch which Linnaeus, under the name myxine, considered a worm.
Thus, in the order which we are following, the genus gasterobranch must be the first of the fish, because it is the least perfected.
REPTILES
Viviparous animals, with vertebra and cold blood; breathing incompletely by a lung, at least in their later life; with a smooth skin or one covered in scales or a bony shell.
Observations
In the reptiles some progress in the perfectioning of organic structures is very noticeable, if we compare these animals with the fish. For among them we find for the first time the lung, which we know is the most perfect respiratory organ, because it is the same as what is in man. But here it is only sketchy, and several reptiles do not even have one in the early part of their lives. In truth, they breathe only incompletely, for only a part of the blood is sent to the parts which go by the lung.
It is also among them that we see for the first time in a distinct way four limbs which are part of the design of vertebrate animals and which are appendages of (or depend upon) the skeleton.
Table of Reptiles
First ORDER: BATRACHIAN REPTILES
Heart with one auricle; bare skin; two or four legs; gills in the first stage of life; no coupling
Urodela
Siren Proteus
Triton Salamander
Anura
Tree-frog Frog
Pipa Toad
SECOND ORDER: OPHIDIAN REPTILES (SNAKES)
Heart with one auricle; elongated body, narrow and without limbs or fins; no eyelids
Homoderms
Coecilia Amphisboena Acrochordus
Ophisaurus Slow-worm Sea snake
Heteroderms
Crotalus Scytale Boa Erpeton
Erix Viper Coluber Platurus
THIRD ORDER: SAURIAN REPTILES
Heart with two auricles; scaly body furnished with four limbs; claws on the digits; teeth in the jaw bones.
Tereticauds
Calcides Scincus Gecko Anolis Dragon
Agama Lacerta Iguana Stellio Chamaeleon
Planicauds
Uroplates Tupinambis Basiliseus
Lophura Dracaena Crocodile