If you read any books or literature on reptiles, amphibians or invertebrates, sooner or later you're going to come up against words that you may only have heard in biology at school, if at all. Words like rostral, mental (nothing to do with the brain or the intelligence), distal, caudal and scute abound, particularly when telling you how to identify one species from another.
This isn't some devious plan by writers or herpetologists to preserve some sort of "in-crowd" or make themselves feel above you. Rather it is a shorthand way of passing on information. Every area of human knowledge has its own special words, and herpetology is no exception. These words are actually fairly easily understood once you've picked up the meaning. Note that some of them can be used as both nouns (eg, "The Fire Salamander is a caudate") and adjectives (eg, "the caudate circulatory system").
This list is by no means complete yet, but will be updated on a regular basis. It is not intended to be exhaustive but to help the reader understand some of the terms more commonly used on these pages, particularly species guides.
| aestivate | to reduce bodily activity during period of hot and/or dry/arid weather, usually in a place offering some protection from excessive heat or dryness; similar to, but not as intense as, hibernation (noun = aestivation) |
| anal | relating to the anus |
| anterior | frontal, at the front |
| anuran | frog or toad |
| arboreal | pertaining to trees: hence an arboreal species is a tree-dwelling species |
| axilla | armpit |
| carapace | upper part of a chelonian (turtle or tortoise) shell |
| caudal | tail, or pertaining to the tail |
| caudate | newt or salamander |
| chelonian | an animal that is a tortoise, turtle or terrapin; adjective relating to such an animal |
| cloaca | in amphibians, reptiles and birds, the anal opening that serves for both excreting and reproduction. Beavers also have a cloaca rather than the mammalian arrangement of a separate anus and reproductive opening. |
| collar | in some lizards, for instance, lacertids, a sort of fringe of scales between the head and neck |
| cranial | head, or pertaining to the head |
| crepuscular | active by twilight |
| crocodilian | relating to alligator, crocodile, caiman or gharial |
| distal | the part of something furthest from its point of attachment: thus the distal part of a toe is the opposite end to where it joins the foot |
| diurnal | active by day |
| dorsal | top, on top: in a four-legged creature such as a lizard, salamander or cat, it refers to the creature's back, as opposed to its underbelly |
| fossorial | burrowing or living below ground |
| gular | throat, pertaining to the throat |
| hibernate | to drastically reduce bodily activity during prolonged cold weather (usually winter), usually by entering a period of dormancy in a shelter (noun = hibernation) |
| infralabial | scale on the lower jaw below the lip and touching it |
| lanceolate | lance-shaped |
| lingua fossa | the notch-like opening in the lower surface of the rostral scale in snakes through which the tongue can be protruded when the mouth is closed |
| mental | 1. pertaining to thought or mind, eg mental processes: 2. pertaining to the chin, eg mental scale, mental gland (the latter in salamanders): 3. a scale on the chin (usually when related to lizards or snakes) |
| nocturnal | active by night |
| opercular | scale over the ear |
| ophid | snake or serpent |
| orbital | eye socket |
| osteoderm | in crocodiles and some lizards, a bony plate directly attached below the skin to a scale above - a sort of armour plating |
| palpebral | pertaining to the eyelids |
| plastron | lower part of a chelonian (turtle or tortoise) shell |
| posterior | rear, at the rear |
| postnasals | one scale on either side of the upper jaw behind the rostral |
| riparian | living by streams or rivers |
| rostral | single scale on the end of the upper jaw |
| saurian | lizard |
| saxicolous | dwelling among rocks |
| scute | "scale" or "plate" on a tortoise, turtle or terrapin shell, usually clearly outlined by sutures |
| supralabial | scale on the upper jaw above the lip and touching it |
| suture | the join between two or more scales or scutes |
| terrestrial | ground-dwelling |
| tubercle | a sort of raised and pointed scale: in lizards, usually found only on geckos |
| urodele | newt or salamander |
| ventral | bottom, underneath: the opposite of dorsal. Thus, a lizard's ventral surfaces are the undersides of its limbs, its throat and its belly. |