AMPHIBIA

This article appears in Volume V01, Page 883 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ALM-ANC

AMPHIBIA , a zoological term originally employed by Linnaeus to denote a class of the Animal Kingdom comprising crocodiles, lizards and salamanders,

snakes

SNAKES

and Caeciliae, tortoises and turtles and frogs; to which, in the later editions of the SystemaNaturae he added some groups of fishes. In the Tableau Elementaire, published in 1795, Cuvier adopts Linnaeus's term in its earlier sense, but uses the French word " Reptiles," already brought into use by Brisson, as the equivalent of Amphibia. In addition Cuvier accepts the Linnaean subdivisions of Amphibia-Reptilia for the tortoises, lizards (including crocodiles), salamanders and frogs; and Amphibia-Serpentes for the

snakes

SNAKES

, apodal lizards and Caeciliae.
In 1799' Alexandre Brongniart pointed out the wide differences which

separate

SEPARATE

the frogs and salamanders (which he terms Batrachia) from the other reptiles; and in 1804 P. A. Latreille,2 rightly estimating the value of these differences, though he was not an

original

ORIGINAL

worker in the field of vertebrate

zoology

ZOOLOGY (from Gr. Nov, a living thing, and ?byos, theory)

, proposed to

separate

SEPARATE

Brongniart's Batrachia from the class of Reptilia proper, as a group of equal value, for which he retained the Linnaean name of Amphibia.
Cuvier went no further than Brongniart, and, in the Regne Animal, he dropped the term Amphibia, and substituted Reptilia for it. J. F. Meckel,3 on the other hand, while equally accepting Brongniart's classification, retained the term Amphibia in its earlier Linnaean sense; and his example has been generally followed by German writers, as, for instance, by H. Stannius, in that remarkable

monument

MONUMENT (Lat. monumentum or monumentum; from monere, to advise, bring to mind, remind; the German equivalent is Denkmal)

of accurate and extensive research, the Handbuch der Zootomie (2nd ed., 1856).
In 1816, de Blairsville,' adopting Latreille's view, divided the Linnaean Amphibia into Squamiferes and Nudipelliferes, or Amphibiens; though he offered an alternative arrangement, in which the class Reptiles is preserved and divided into two sub-classes, the Ornithoides and the Ichthyoides. The latter are Brongniart's Batrachia, plus the Caeciliae, whose true affinities had, in the meanwhile, been shown by A. M. C. Dumeril; and, in this arrangement, the name Amphibiens is restricted to Proteus and Siren.
B. Merrem's Pholidota and Batrachia (182o), F. S. Leuckart's Monopnoa and Dipnoa (1821), J. Miller's Squamata and Nuda (1832), are merely new names for de Blainville's Ornithoides and Ichthyoides, though Muller gave far better anatomical characters of the two groups than had previously been put forward. More-
1 Brongniart's Essai d'une classification naturelle des reptiles was not published in full till 1803. It appears in the volume of the Mimoires presentes a I'Inslitut par divers savans for 1805.
2 Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle, xxiv., cited in Latreille's Families naturelles du regne animal.
5 System der vergleichenden Anatomie (1821).
' " Prodrome d'une Nouvelle Distribution du Regne Animal," Bulletin des sciences par la Societe Philomalique de Paris (1816), p.113.
AMPHIBOLE 8 8 3
over, following the indications already given by K. E. von Baer in 1828,5 Muller calls the attention of naturalists to the important fact, that while all the Squamata possess an amnion and an allantois, these structures are absent in the embryos of all the Nuda. An appeal made by Muller for observations on the development of the Caeciliae, and of those Amphibia which retain gills or gill-clefts throughout life, has unfortunately yielded no fruits.
In 1825 P. A. Latreille6 published a new classification of the Vertebrata, which are primarily divided into Haematherma, containing the three classes of Mammifera, Monotremata and Aves; and Ilaemacryma, also containing three classesReptilia, Amphibia and Pisces. This division of the Vertebrata into hot and cold blooded is a curiously

retrograde

RETROGRADE (from the Lat. retro, backwards, gradiri, to go)

step, only intelligible when we reflect that the excellent entomologist had no real comprehension of vertebrate morphology; but he makes some atonement for the blunder by steadily upholding the class distinctness of the Amphibia. In this he was followed by Dr J. E. Gray; but Dumeril and Bibron in their

great

GREAT

work

WORK

,' and Dr Gunther in his Catalogue, in substance, adopted Brongniart's arrangement, the Batrachia being simply one of the four orders of the class Reptilia. Huxley adopted Latreille's view of the distinctness of the Amphibia, as a class of the Vertebrata, co-ordinate with the

Mammalia

MAMMALIA (from Lat. mamma, a teat or breast)

, Aves, Reptilia and Pisces; and the same arrangement was accepted by Gegenbaur and Haeckel. In the Hunterian lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1863, Huxley divided the Vertebrata into Mammals, Sauroids and Ichthyoids, the latter division containing the Amphibia and Pisces. Subsequently he proposed the names of Sauropsida and Ichthyopsida for the Sauroids and Ichthyoids respectively.
Sir Richard Owen, in his

work

WORK

on The Anatomy of Vertebrates, followed Latreille in dividing the Vertebrata into Haematotlzerma and Haematocrya, and adopted Leuckart's term of Dipnoa for the Amphibia. T. H. Huxley, in the ninth edition of this Encyclopaedia, treated of Brongniart's Batrachia, under the designation Amphibia, but this use of the word has not been generally accepted. (See BATRACHIA.) (T. H. H.; P. C. M.)

End of Article: AMPHIBIA

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/ALM_ANC/AMPHIBIA.html">
AMPHIBIA
</a>

(Previous)
AMPHIARAUS

(Next)
AMPHIBOLE

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email