Evaporative water loss (EWL) occurs principally across the skin (cutaneous water loss, CWL) of terrestrial reptiles (Shoemaker and Nagy, 1977; Mautz, 1982), but EWL also occurs across respiratory passages (respiratory water loss) and the eyes (ocular water loss) (Mautz, 1982). Over 70% of EWL in agamid lizards is from CWL (Eynan and Dmi’el, 1993). The factors determining the rate of CWL are ski...

tatus) is well known for its unusual diet and foraging mode. Feeding on subtidal/intertidal algae, it incurs a high load of salts (primarily sodium chloride, with some potassium) from its food (Dunson, 1969; Shoemaker and Nagy, 1984). To cope with this high-salt diet, the marine iguana uses large cranial salt glands that excrete most of the sodium, potassium, and chloride ingested; forceful exp...

Since the early investigations of Cowles & Bogert (1944), it has become established that many lizards when active under natural conditions have mean body temperatures that are several degrees higher than air temperature in the shade and are relatively constant (Brattstrom, 1965). This difference between the mean (or eccritic) body temperature and air temperature is maintained primarily by absor...

It was recently reported that the epaxial muscles of a lizard, Varanus salvator, function to stabilize the trunk during locomotion, and it was suggested that this stabilizing role may be a shared derived feature of amniotes. This result was unexpected because it had previously been assumed that the epaxial muscles of lizards function to produce lateral bending during locomotion and that only in...

Animals often face situations that require quantity discrimination for decision-making. Differentiating between more and less amounts might be adaptative in different contexts such as social relationships, navigation, or foraging. However, feeding close to conspecifics change foraging behavior decisions due changes predation risk perception competition resources. Here, we tested the judgment ab...