scutation

English

Etymology

scute +‎ -ation

Noun

scutation (countable and uncountable, plural scutations)

1. (zoology) The number and arrangement of scutes.
   • 1957, Contributions in Science - Issues 393-403, page 25:

     The morphology of dermal scutation in callichthyids is quite different from that in loricariids, with two rather than three more series of overlapping plates along the body, suggesting that the types of scutation in callichthyids and loricariids are non-homologous.

   • 1989, Charles Wax Caillouet, André M. Landry, Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle Biology, Conservation, and Management, page 202:

     There has been a great deal of stability in scutation of the carapace during chelonian evolution (Zangerl and Johnson, 1957).

   • 1991, Mary E. Petersen, J. B. Kirkegaard, Systematics, Biology and Morphology of World Polychaeta:

     The dorsal scutations and configurations of the cephalic plates are also different in the two species.

   • 2011, Richard Owen, Thomas Bell, Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the London Clay, →ISBN, page 28:

     With regard to the comparative anatomy of the bones of the skull, and the pattern of the scutation of the upper surface of the cranium, I regret that the state of the specimen in Professor Bell's collection does not permit the deduction of other distinctive characters which such parts of the cranial organization so satisfactorily afford.