Melissa Kaplan's
Herp Care Collection
Last updated January 1, 2014

Glossary of Herp & Related Terms

F - L

Melissa Kaplan, 1995

Femoral Pores	Enlarged pores found on the inside of the thighs of males and females. Males have larger pores than females. The plugs in the male iguana's pores grow during breeding season and are used to scent mark their territory. Females do some scent marking but not as extensively as males. Chemicals in the waxy plugs can be used to tell if the iguana who left the mark was male or female
Fibrosis	Excessive fibrous tissue formation as a result of injury, infection; calcium deficiency causes fibrosis of the long bones of the body.
Follicles	The enlarging ova in ovaries, prior to fertilization.
Fossorial	Burrows under ground or beneath vegetation
Glottis	The opening at the back of the tongue leading into the trachea (wind pipe)
Granuloma	Tumor-like mass caused by a chronic inflammatory or infectious condition.
Gravid	Pregnant. Used when referring to viviparous, oviparous and ovoviviparous animals.
Heliotherm(c)	Basks in the heat of the sun (or other overhead bright heat source). Commonly found in arboreal and semiarboreal iguanids and agamids, chameleonids, etc. Aquatic and semiaquatic turtles also bask. Snakes use a combination of heliothermic and thigmothermic strategies.
Hemipenes	The bi-lobed male reproductive organs in most reptiles, kept inverted in the tail until needed.
Hemolysis	See Lyse (Lysis)
Herbivorous	Plant eaters. Includes fructivores (fruit eaters) and folivores (leaf eaters)
Herpetology	The study of reptiles and amphibians. From the Greek word herpeton, "things that creep and crawl on their bellies". The herpesvirus is based on the same Greek root, named for the viruses creeping along the nerves in the body.
Herp	A reptile or amphibian. "Herpers" is the term used to refer to people who are interested in or who keep herps. Herpetoculture refers to the keeping and breeding of herps.
Herxheimer (herx)	Also known as the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction. Used to describe the die-off effect of many antibiotics, paraciticides, and antifungals. When the drug kills off the initial large numbers of most susceptible organisms, the patient experiences several days or a week or more of feeling worse as the dead organism lyse and pass through the gut until they are excreted/voided. Once the dead organisms clear out, the patient feels better, resuming more normal daily activities, coloring and appetite. A second, less severe, herx effect may be observed subsequent to the follow-up doses that deal with the more resistant organisms.
Hepatic	Relating to the liver.
Het	Short for hetero, the standard color/pattern for which an animal carries dominant genes.
Insectivore	Eats only insects.
Invertebrate	Animals having external skeletons or shells, or none (e.g., insects, snails, slugs, worms, crabs).
Lateral	Refers to the side, as in "lateral folds".
Lethargy	Drowsiness or prolonged lapses into unconsciousness
Lysis	(lyse, -lyse, lysing, -lysis) Lysis is the destruction of a cell, through the rupture of the cell wall by the contents of the cell or through some outside action. Hemolysis (destruction of blood cells) can occur during the taking of a blood sample (needle gauge too small; blood pressure high due to stress), or when transferring collected blood too quickly from the collection syringe to the processing tube. Hemolysis can cause abnormal blood test results which must be taken into consideration when evaluating certain high/low ranges.

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