Amphibians refers to double life, or life in water and land.

The amphibian include the toads and frogs, salamanders, elongates, limbless tropical caecilians, and various fossil forms from Devonian time onward. The class name (Gr. Amphi, dual+ bios, life) appropriately indicates that most of the pieces live partly in fresh water and partly on land. In both structure and function, the amphibians stand between the fishes and reptiles, being the first group among the chordates to live out of water. Several new features adapt them for terrestrial life such as leg, lungs, nostrils connecting to the mouth cavity and sense organ that can function in both water and air. Amphibians are important predators on insects and other small invertebrates and many are the chief vertebrates predators of moist small opening found in rotting logs, beneath stones and barks, in leaf litter and in the ground. They are important in nutrients cycling between fresh waters and upland terrestrial environments, as pond nutrients, incorporated into their larval structure, are transported to the land, through dispersal and death of transformed individuals. They serve as food for various vertebrates, including humans, and many species are used for biological teaching and research.

CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Skin moist and glandular; no external scales. 2. Two pairs of limbs for walking or swimming (no paired fins); toes four to five or fewer (no limbs on caecilians, no hind limbs on SIRENIDAF); any median fins lack fin rays. 3. Nostrils two, connected to mouth cavity and valves that exclude water and aid lung respiration; eyes often with movable lid; eardrum external on toads and frogs; mouth usually with small teeth; tongue often protrusible. 4. Skeleton largely bony; skull with two occipital condyles, ribs, if present, not attached to sternum. 5. Heart typically three-chambered, two atria and one vertical, but atrial septum incomplete in salamanders, which lack or have reduced lung function; one (or three) pair of aortic arches; red blood cells nucleated and oval. 6. Respiration by gills, lungs, skin, or the mouth lining, separately or in combination; gills present at some stage in life history; vocal chords in toads and frogs. 7. Brain with 10 pairs of cranial nerves. 8. Excretion by mesonepric kidney; urea chief nitrogenous waste of transformed individuals. 9. Body temperature variable (ectothermal) 10. Fertilization internal or external; mostly oviparous; eggs with some yolk and enclosed in gelatinous covering; cleavage holablastic but unequal; no extra embryonic membranes; usually an aquatic larval stage with metamorphosis to adult form.

The amphibian are the earliest tetrapods (Gr. Tetra, four + podos, foot), or land
vertebrates. They undoubtedly derived from some fish like ancestors, possibly in Devonian times. The transition of the body for travel to land involved.: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Modification of the body for travel on land while retaining the ability to swim, Development of limbs in place of paired fins skin changes to facilitate respiration Increased emphasis on lung respiration, usually with loss of gills in adults Changes in the circulatory system to provide for respiration by the lungs and the skin. 6. Changes in metabolism and excretion to form less toxic nitrogenous waste, and

7. Acquisition of sense organs that function in both air and water. In the early larvae of all amphibians and such salamanders as retain the gills through out life, there are multi- aortic arches, as in fishes. After metamorphosis, the other salamanders, the toads and frogs, and the caecilians have but one pair of arches, as in reptiles. The amphibians skull is simpler, with fewer bones than in fishes, but the limbs muscle are more complex than those of the lateral fin in fishes. Some primitive fossil labyrinthodont amphibians probably were ancestral to the oldestreptiles and so to all higher land vertebrates

Classification of class amphibians

Amphibians living forms with moist glandular skin, no scales except caecilians; typically 2 pairs of limbs; 2 nostrils connecting to mouth cavity, skull with 2 occipital condyles; heart 3-chambered; respiration by gills, lungs, skin or lining of mouth cavity; eggs with gelatinous coverings, usually laid in water; larvae usually aquatic; adults in water or in moist places on land; Devonian to recent, over 3400 living species. Subclass 1. Labyrinthodontia. Two sets of bony arch structure, intercentrum and pleurocentrum, in central region of vertebrates below each neutral arch, not froglike; tail present, often long, legs all of about same size; cranium and face completely rppfted with bony plates; often armored ventrally with overlapping scales. Order1. Itchyostegelia vertebrae resemble those of temnospondyls; caudal fin partly supported by dermal rays; primarily aquatic; late Devonian to early carboniferous. Order2. Temnospondyli. Most with pleuroncentra of vertebrates as small paired blocks,typically laterodorsal, but in later forms reduced or absent and intercentrumalone present below neutral arches. Order3. Antracosauria. Pleucentra complete disk enclosing notochord; intercentra diskshaped or reduced to small ventral wedges; vomers narrow; Upper Carboniferous, limbs small. Subclass 2. Lepospondyli. Centrum of vertebrae single, often spool-shaped; with longitudinal opening for persistent notochord. Order4. Nectridia. Tail with expanded nueral and haemal processes; Carboniferous to lower Permian. Order5. Aitopoda. No limbs; body long; snakelike; Carboniferous and Permian. Order6. Microsauria. Small, body slender, limns short; skull lengthened postorbitally; Carboniferous to Permian. Subclass 3. Salientia. Centra of vertebrae reduced or absent , replaced by downgrowth of neutral arches; skull bone reduced; trunk short; elongatedilia; hind legs usually longer than forelegs. Order7. Proanura. Early frogs. Precaudal vertebrae 16, caudal 3 or 4; no urostyle; hind legs only slightly enlarged. Order 8. Anura. Toads and frogs, No tail; skull thin, no solid root, much reduced few bones, vertebrae few; the last a slender urostyle formed by fusion of vertebrae, ribs are reduced or none; hind legs usually enlarged for leaping, webbed between toes; considerable cartilage in skeleton; egg deposition and fertilization usually external by clasped pairs of adult of fused avoid head + body and long tail with median fins, no

true teeth, usually aquatic; metamorphosis conspicuous; about 2900 species; Jurassic to recent.