Abstract
ABSTRACTCannibalism is a recurrent behavior across the animal kingdom, with important ecological and evolutionary consequences due to its potential trade-offs on the fitness of involved individuals and demography dynamics. Cannibalism has been reported in eight species of several phylogenetic lineages within Liolaemus, a highly diverse genus of Neotropical lizards. Within the Liolaemus montanus series, two species are reported to eat juveniles in captivity. We observed a female Liolaemus orientalis, another L. montanus series member, which had ingested a juvenile of its own species in the wild. As it generally happens with other lizards, cannibalism in Liolaemus has been suggested to be performed by the larger sex, with L. chiliensis being the only other case observed until now in which the cannibalistic individual was a female. The fact that females are slightly smaller than males in L. orientalis means that our observation is an exception to previously observed trends. We suggest that there is a relationship between this behavior and the presence of a masculine trait in the cannibalistic female: developed precloacal pores. We also discuss how refuge availability may influence demography and the probability of dispersing juveniles encountering adults, increasing the chances for cannibalism to play some role in population density regulation.
Highlights
Cannibalism or predation of conspecifics is a widespread behavior in the animal kingdom with important ecological and evolutionary implications (Polis 1981)
At least the exceptional case of female cannibalism in L. orientalis follows the common pattern observed in other animals (Polis 1981), where females are usually the cannibalistic sex
We could not discard that cannibalism in L. orientalis could be a behavior carried out by males
Summary
Cannibalism or predation of conspecifics is a widespread behavior in the animal kingdom with important ecological and evolutionary implications (Polis 1981). The highly diverse genus Liolaemus, with more than 250 species (Schulte et al 2000; Abdala & Quinteros 2014) is not an exception, as cannibalism has been observed in six Liolaemus species in the wild and in two additional species in captivity (reviewed by Pincheira-Donoso 2012; Villarreal et al 2012). The general lack of knowledge on natural history and behavior within Liolaemus (Halloy et al 2013), the difficulty of observing intraspecific predation events in nature, and the occurrence of this behavior across different phylogenetic groups within Liolaemus (Pincheira-Donoso 2012), suggests that the extent of cannibalism in this genus might be underestimated
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