Examples of scute in a Sentence
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With their dark, armored skin and bony scutes, or external plates, American alligators thrive in slow-moving freshwater rivers, swamps, marshes, and lakes across the Southeast, including Florida's Everglades.
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Lucy Notarantonio, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Aug. 2025
Box turtles, for example, grow their scute outward over time, like how humans grow fingernails.
—Celia Ford, WIRED, 30 Aug. 2023
In a study published in the journal PNAS Nexus, researchers claim that the scute keratin of a chelonian shell layers over time.
—Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 23 Aug. 2023
Stomach contents reveal a regular diet of cephalopods, but some also include sharks, fish, turtles, ichthyosaurs, other marine reptiles, and even dinosaur dermal scutes.
—Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 23 Mar. 2023
Instead of only a defensive function, then, the unique arrangement of scutes on Desmatosuchus may have played a social role and allowed these animals to recognize each other and size each other up, just as paleontologists expect the much later ankylosaurs did.
—Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Mar. 2023
Each scute has concentric growth rings at the center, which have been often cited—perhaps erroneously—as a way to estimate their age.
—National Geographic, 26 Mar. 2020
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Lucy Notarantonio, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Aug. 2025
Box turtles, for example, grow their scute outward over time, like how humans grow fingernails.
—Celia Ford, WIRED, 30 Aug. 2023
In a study published in the journal PNAS Nexus, researchers claim that the scute keratin of a chelonian shell layers over time.
—Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 23 Aug. 2023
Stomach contents reveal a regular diet of cephalopods, but some also include sharks, fish, turtles, ichthyosaurs, other marine reptiles, and even dinosaur dermal scutes.
—Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 23 Mar. 2023
Instead of only a defensive function, then, the unique arrangement of scutes on Desmatosuchus may have played a social role and allowed these animals to recognize each other and size each other up, just as paleontologists expect the much later ankylosaurs did.
—Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Mar. 2023
Each scute has concentric growth rings at the center, which have been often cited—perhaps erroneously—as a way to estimate their age.
—National Geographic, 26 Mar. 2020
Cite this Entry
“Scute.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scute. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.
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