#And yet it moves lizard skin

In gymnophthalmid lizards, as well as in other fossorial lacertoids, it has been suggested that communication is conducted mostly using chemical cues to inform behaviors such as social interactions, courtship, and mating. These characteristics, in addition to a “non-charismatic” status, have limited studies regarding its biology and natural history. Gymnophthalmids are lizards with cryptic dorsal color patterns, and fossorial or semi-fossorial behaviors. Indeed, these species usually lack dewlaps or other visible accessorial structures commonly associated with visual communication. It is less clear if fossorial or semi-fossorial lizards also use visual signaling. However, epidermal glands and chemoreception ability (judged by vomerolfaction development, tongue shape, and tongue-flicking) are present in every lizard clade therefore, it is possible that most lizards use multiple signal modalities (chemical and visual signaling, for example) to communicate. Historically, it has been suggested that some groups within Squamata, like Gymnophthalmidae, rely more in chemical signaling as a form of communication, compared to other clades on which communication is mostly based on visual signaling.

#And yet it moves lizard skin

In addition to chemical signaling, visual signaling is widespread across lizards and consists of the context-dependent presentation of visually distinctive skin ornaments like dewlaps, proboscides, colorful parts of the body, changes in coloration, movement of the head, limbs or tail, among others. Chemical signals are secreted by epidermal glands such as the femoral follicular glands and the preanal glands, although metabolites in skin or in feces may also be important. Chemical communication in lizards comes by means of the secretions of chemical signals and its vomerolfactory reception. Based on our results, we propose that visual signaling is also possible in semi-fossorial lizards however, further studies regarding chemical signal recognition and color detection are required to confirm our hypothesis.Ĭommunication signals vary greatly across squamate reptiles and may involve acoustic, visual, and chemical components. We also detected other visual displays like neck-arching and tail-undulation which may also be relevant as visual signals.

Through the design of conspecific stimulus experiments, we were able to recognize leg-waving as a visual signal, as it is only displayed in presence of conspecifics or in presence of a mirror and was one of first and most frequent displays in this context. We present the first description of visual signaling in the Andean lizard Pholidobolus montium (Gymnophthalmidae) and a complete ethogram based on ex situ observations (34 different types of behaviors including positions and simple movements). It has been suggested that gymnophthalmids, like most semi-fossorial lacertoids, rely more in chemical cues to communicate, in comparison to other groups, like Iguanids, on which communication is mostly based on visual signaling.