Reptiles

Reptiles
The reptiles or creepy-crawlies form a class of vertebrates with nearly 10,000 species worldwide. In the historical view, reptiles include the turtles (Testudines), the armored lizards or crocodilians (Crocodylia), the tuataras (Sphenodontia), and the pangolins (Squamata). All of our native species of lizards and snakes are pangolins, and the European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis) is a turtle.

However, this classical grouping does not reflect the evolutionary-historical relationships, and if one were to consider the reptiles as a monophyletic taxon, i.e., as a group of forms containing all subgroups that go back to a common ancestral form, one would also have to include, for example, the birds among the reptiles. The science that deals with amphibians and reptiles is herpetology.