Who's the authority on salamanders and newts here?

[ZEGH8578]

I got a question:
How do they stretch?
DO they stretch?

I am wanting to make a portrait of a dinosaur stretching, and I have found clear patterns in bird and mammal stretching, birds clearly stand out from mammals, but both have a very few prefered methods of stretching. This suggest method of stretching is an old, mostly unchanged genetic inheritage, mice and horses stretch the same way. Sparrows and swans stretch the same way.
But birds and mammals stretch differently.
Now, birds and dinos are related, but that doesnt mean dinos have NO relation to mammals.
If mammal stretch is unified, it means mammal stretching method is possibly older than the origin of dinosaurs, going far enough back to also exist in dinosaur heritage.

This of course makes me curious - how does lizards stretch? Or amphibians. These contain the "core heritage" of both dinosaurs and mammals.

[earthboundmisfit]

I believe Peter would be the guy to ask.

[midlifeaspie]

What is this stretching you speak of?

['andersom']

What is this stretching you speak of?

Don't you ever yawn, and stretch your arms over your head?

[ZEGH8578]

I believe Peter would be the guy to ask.

Ah yes, I thought so

Let's hope he spots this thread then!

[midlifeaspie]

What is this stretching you speak of?

Don't you ever yawn, and stretch your arms over your head?

No, but I have seen people do this in coffee commercials

[ZEGH8578]

What is this stretching you speak of?

Don't you ever yawn, and stretch your arms over your head?

No, but I have seen people do this in coffee commercials

For future references, this is how people normally stretch:

[Lestat]

Innteresting bit of nerwt trivia: many in the genus Taricha secrate the very same neurotoxin, tetrotrododoxin, as is found in the blue ringed octopus and fugu puffer fish.

[P7PSP]

Innteresting bit of nerwt trivia: many in the genus Taricha secrate the very same neurotoxin, tetrotrododoxin, as is found in the blue ringed octopus and fugu puffer fish.

Nerwts are cool.

[Al Swearegen]

Peter is

[Peter]

I got a question:
How do they stretch?
DO they stretch?

I am wanting to make a portrait of a dinosaur stretching, and I have found clear patterns in bird and mammal stretching, birds clearly stand out from mammals, but both have a very few prefered methods of stretching. This suggest method of stretching is an old, mostly unchanged genetic inheritage, mice and horses stretch the same way. Sparrows and swans stretch the same way.
But birds and mammals stretch differently.
Now, birds and dinos are related, but that doesnt mean dinos have NO relation to mammals.
If mammal stretch is unified, it means mammal stretching method is possibly older than the origin of dinosaurs, going far enough back to also exist in dinosaur heritage.

This of course makes me curious - how does lizards stretch? Or amphibians. These contain the "core heritage" of both dinosaurs and mammals.

I've never seem them do a full-body stretch like a dog or cat would do, but they do yawn and seem to stretch their jaw muscles, and maybe stretch their necks a little in the process.







I've seen lots of species of newt and salamander yawning and the more terrestrial ones sometimes follow it up with some extra lip-smacking movements, like this frilled dragon is doing (just a video I came across while looking for yawning axolotls):



They're generally very conservative about their movements, typically staying completely still when they don't have something specific to do, except for the occasional yawn and the buccal pumping they use to breathe (or gill twitching in the case of larvae and neotenous species like axolotls).

[Peter]

More yawn videos (lizards and a snake):

[Peter]

Fish yawning:

[Lestat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon#Saliva

Some truly revolting mating relationship/mating rituals....vomiting, shitting, and rolling around in rotting animal viscera to deter predation from cannibalistic larger monitor lizard adults by the young.


If dragon breath is nasty, kommodo dragon breath has to be much worse

[ZEGH8578]

Those are interesting videos.
The only one who seemed like doing half a stretch was the chameleon. The little body-movement it did might be interpreted as some kind of a "proto-stretch" perhaps, where it does his yawning, and then does a quick little body-jerk, just to loosen itself a bit, before going back to standing still the rest of the day?
I always assumed yawning and stretching go hand in hand, but apparently stretching SEEMS to be something limited to higher amniotes, while yawning obviously go far, far back. It struck me how we still consider yawning somewhat of a mystery, and yet it has gone uncorrected by evolution for hundreds of millions of years.