Reptile facts for kids: 8 reptiles to research

Reptiles are cold-blooded, scaly animals that lay eggs on land or give birth to live young, and the roughly 12,000 species include lizards, snakes, turtles and crocodilians. Because they take their heat from the sun rather than from food, they can go weeks or months between meals. Crocodiles and alligators belong to a lineage more than 200 million years old and have the strongest measured bite of any living animal; the saltwater crocodile is the largest living reptile at over 6 metres. The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard, with a venomous bite that weakens deer and buffalo. Sea turtles cross oceans and return to the beach where they hatched to lay their own eggs, and the hawksbill is Critically Endangered. Chameleons swivel each eye independently and fire a tongue longer than their body. Snakes smell with their tongues and swallow prey wider than their heads by stretching their loosely hinged jaws. Around a fifth of reptile species are threatened, mostly by habitat loss.