Fig. 5.

Biomechanical characterisation of Heloderma suspectum osteoderm (OD). (A) Illustration of material characterisation (tensile and puncture testing) of sheets of skin (unpublished data). (B) Atomic force microscopy of a single OD. (C) Finite element simulation of a single OD under compression (adopted and modified from Iacoviello et al., ²⁰²⁰). (D) (i) Three‐dimensional reconstruction of the skull of the lizard Timon lepida; green, cranial bone; blue, free ODs; purple, temporal‐ODs and quadrate attachment. (ii, iii) Modelling anterior biting. Von Mises stress due to bilateral bite of 170 N (based on published data), with temporal ODs not connected (ii) or connected (iii) to the quadrate.