molting

["Colette H. Adams" <cadams@hh.gpz.org>]

Crocodilians molt in very small pieces, generally each scute is separate.
Losing minerals in the shed does not seem to be an issue for them, they
certainly make no effort to ingest the shed pieces when they are floating
around their heads.  Large snakes and lizards tend to shed in smaller
pieces than smaller ones, although there is a lot of variation in this.
Some larger lizards seem to have very few ecdysis cycles per year, with the
actual peeling process stretching out to the point that they are almost in
a perpetual peel.  Many small lizards and some smaller snakes do ingest
their sheds, but to my knowledge this is unknown in larger ones.  I suspect
that dinosaurs shed in small pieces, particularly the larger ones.  I doubt
that there was much opportunity for them to ingest their sheds.