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Scute
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A scute or scutum (Latin: scutum; plural: scuta "shield") is a bony external plate or scale overlaid with
horn, as on the shell of a turtle, the skin of crocodilians, and the feet of birds. The term is also used to
describe the anterior portion of the mesonotum in insects as well as some arachnids (e.g., the family
Ixodidae, the scale ticks).

Contents

Properties

Mammals

Turtles

Fish

Birds
Scutes on an alligator foot
Insects and other arthropods

See also

References

Properties

Scutes are similar to scales and serve the same function. Unlike
the scales of lizards and snakes, which are formed from the
epidermis, scutes are formed in the lower vascular layer of the
skin and the epidermal element is only the top
surface[citation needed]. Forming in the living dermis, the scutes
produce a horny outer layer that is superficially similar to that of
scales. Scutes will usually not overlap as snake scales (but see
the pangolin). The outer keratin layer is shed piecemeal, and not
in one continuous layer of skin as seen in snakes or lizards. The
dermal base may contain bone and produce dermal armour.
Scutes with a bony base are properly called osteoderms. Dermal
scutes are also found in the feet of birds and tails of some
mammals, and are believed to be the primitive form of dermal
armour in reptiles.

The term is also used to describe the heavy armour of the Scute of the carapace of a Texas
armadillo and the extinct Glyptodon, and is occasionally used as tortoise
an alternative to scales in describing snakes or certain fishes,
such as sturgeons, shad, herring, and menhaden.

Mammals

Prehistoric ancestors of mammals, the synapsids, are thought to

have scutes which were later reduced and replaced by hair.
Excluding the attachment surface of fingernails, armoured scutes
This detail of a Glyptodon displays its
or scales are almost never seen in modern mammals. The horny scutes. From the collection of the
scales of pangolins are only rarely called scutes, but "scute" is Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
used to describe the heavy armour of the armadillo.

Turtles

Main article: Turtle shell

The turtle's shell is covered by scutes formed mostly of keratin. They are built similarly to horn, beak,
or nail in other species.

Fish

Some fish, such as pineconefish, are completely or partially

covered in scutes. River herrings and threadfins have an
abdominal row of scutes, which are scales with raised, sharp
points that are used for protection. Some jacks have a row of
scutes following the lateral line on either side. Sturgeon have five
rows of scutes instead of scales.

Birds The pineconefish

The tarsometatarsus and toes of most birds are covered in two types of scales. Large scutes run along
the dorsal side of the tarsometatarsus and toes, whereas smaller scutellae run along the sides. Both
structures share histochemical homology with reptilian scales, however work on their evolutionary
development has revealed that the scales in bird feet have secondarily evolved via suppression of the
feather-building genetic program.[1][2][3] Unblocking the feather suppression program results in
feathers growing in place of scales along the tarsometatarsus and toes.[1][2][3] Dinosaur species very
close to the origin of birds have been shown to have had "hind wings" made of feathers growing from
these areas, suggesting that the acquisition of feathers in dinosaurs was a whole-body event.[3] The
bottoms of bird feet are covered in small, keeled scale-like structures known as reticulae. Evolutionary
developmental studies on these scale-like structures have revealed that they are composed entirely of
alpha keratin (true epidermal scales are composed of a mix of alpha and beta keratin).[3] These data
have led some researchers to suggest that reticulae are in fact highly truncated feathers.[3][4]

Insects and other arthropods

The term "scutum" is also used in insect anatomy, as an alternative name for the anterior portion of
the mesonotum (and, technically, the metanotum, though rarely applied in that context).

In the hard ticks, the Ixodidae, the scutum is a rigid, sclerotised

plate on the anterior dorsal surface, just posterior to the head. In
species with eyes, the eyes are on the surface of the scutum. The
flexible exoskeleton posterior to the rigid scutum of the female
tick, is called the alloscutum, the region that stretches to
accommodate the blood with which the mature female tick
becomes engorged. Males do not engorge nearly as drastically
as females, so they do not need a flexible alloscutum; instead the
rigid scutum covers practically the entire dorsal surface posterior
to the head, and may be referred to specifically as the
conscutum.[5]

In some species of Opiliones, fused abdominal segments are

referred to as a scutum.[6]
Conspicuous scutum on a typical
female hard tick before she has fed.
See also Note the pale eye-spots near the edges
of the scutum, roughly between the 2nd
and 3rd legs
Fish scutes

Osteoderms

Scale (zoology)

Snake scales

Keratin

Skin

Skeleton

References The same scutum is relatively less

conspicuous after the tick has fed,
because it has not changed in size,
1. ^ a b Sawyer, R.H., Knapp, L.W. 2003. Avian Skin Development and the
whereas the tick has swollen as it
Evolutionary Origin of Feathers. J. Exp. Zool (Mol Dev Evol) 298B:57–
engorged
72.

2. ^ a b Sawyer, R.H.; Rogers, L.; Washington, L.; Glenn, T.C.; Knapp, L.W.
(2005). "Evolutionary Origin of the Feather Epidermis" . Dev. Dyn.
232 (2): 256–267. doi:10.1002/dvdy.20291 . PMID 15637693 .
S2CID 44477271 .

3. ^ a b c d e Dhouailly, D (2009). "A new scenario for the evolutionary

origin of hair, feather, and avian scales" (PDF). Journal of Anatomy.
214 (4): 587–606. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.01041.x .
PMC 2736124 . PMID 19422430 .
In the typical male hard tick, the
conscutum covers practically the whole
4. ^ Zheng, X.; Zhou, Z.; Wang, X.; Zhang, F.; Zhang, X.; Wang, Y.; Xu, X.
back
(2013). "Hind wings in basal birds and the evolution of leg feathers".
Science. 339 (6125): 1309–1312. Bibcode:2013Sci...339.1309Z . CiteSeerX 10.1.1.1031.5732 .
doi:10.1126/science.1228753 . PMID 23493711 . S2CID 206544531 .

5. ^ Ivan G. Horak; Heloise Heyne; Roy Williams; G. James Gallivan; Arthur M. Spickett; J. Dürr Bezuidenhout;
Agustín Estrada-Peña (14 February 2018). The Ixodid Ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) of Southern Africa . Springer.
pp. 46–. ISBN 978-3-319-70642-9.

6. ^ Ricardo Pinto-da-Rocha; Rafael Fonseca-Ferreira; Maria Bichuette (18 November 2015). "A new highly
specialized cave harvestman from Brazil and the first blind species of the genus: Iandumoema smeagol sp. n.
(Arachnida, Opiliones, Gonyleptidae)" . ZooKeys (537): 79–95. doi:10.3897/zookeys.537.6073 .
PMC 4714048 . PMID 26798238 .

Last edited on 19 February 2024, at 05:05

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