Even without cultural bias, studying reptiles can be difficult.
“A lot of them are pretty shy,” said Alison Alberts, a conservation scientist and co-founder of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Iguana Expert Group. She added: They just freeze — they stop engaging in some of their normal social interactions in the presence of people. “
Many forms of interaction between reptiles are also invisible.
“Chemical communication plays a big role,” says Julia Riley, a behavioral ecologist at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada. It is difficult to
But despite these prejudices and difficulties, researchers are beginning to uncover the complex social world of these creatures.
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One of the most intriguing findings about reptilian social behavior, the long-term monogamy of lizards like Ned and Sunny, happened purely by chance.
Michael BullThe Australian biologists who made this discovery were initially less interested in lizards and more interested in studying lizards. different types of mites It lived on them. Beginning in 1982, he captured shingles, marked them, took various measurements, and then released them. Years later (and thousands of lizards), he realized that every spring, the same male and female months apart manage to find each other.
By human standards, single-buck courtship is probably the least romantic.
Jane Melville, senior curator of terrestrial vertebrates at the Museum of Victoria in Australia, said, “Male tracks females for weeks, often months, and protects them from other males who try to invade them. Males have also been seen feeding their mates first, she said.