Anole Annals has a long tradition of promoting knowledge of honorary anoles (e.g., here). A little while ago, we had a post on non-anole dewlaps featuring Otocryptis and now we continue what will become a series of sporadic posts on the Asian branch of the anole fan club (Hey! That was a pun, in case you missed it).

Thanks to Sameera Suranjan Karunarathna’s posting on the Facebook “Professional Herpetologists” page, I’ve become aware of several interesting articles on the behavior of the Asian dewlap-bearing agamid lizard, Otocryptis wiegmannii.

The first paper is on the territorial behavior of this species. The description sounds like anoles in some ways—dewlap deployment is a major feature—but different in others, such as the ability of the dewlap to change colors and the way in which the lizards launch themselves at each other after approaching bipedally. Here’s the heart of the description:

“At once both males ran towards each other bypedally about 1 m and stood by their hind limbs for about another 1 minute (Fig. 3b). After that, there was about 1 m distance between them. During this period they were expanding and compressing their dewlaps rapidly approximately four to six times per minute and kept the dewlap expanded for approximately 1 second. Theirtails were lifted up and they appeared suddenly with black and white bands that became more prominent. The body colour was distinct with yellow, black, white and green. Their heartswere fluttered fast and both lizards breathed deeply.

Struggling

After the appalling step, the both males jumped forward again and knocked against each other while booting with their hind limbs (Fig. 3c). Both males jumped towards each other from about 0.5 m. The collision was so powerful that they were thrown off on either side. Afterwards, both males retreated to about 1 m away from each other. Then they rested while expanding and compressing their dewlaps for 30 seconds, approximately two to four times, and kept the dewlap expanded for approximately 5 seconds. Again they jumped forward, knocked against each other and retreated to 1 m. Likewise, they repeated this action 10 times for 30 seconds each time, to rest.

Savaging

After the struggling step, both males jumped forward again and bit each other without knocking and booting. But both individuals were trying to escape other’s biting. Afterwards, they pushed each other using their hind limbs. During this savaging period they were conglomerated and rolled while snapping each other (Fig. 3d). However, this action was restricted to only 30 seconds at each time. At once they escaped from each other and retreated to about 1 m away. Then they rested while expanding and compressing their dewlaps for about 30seconds. Again, they jumped forward and bit each other while conglomerating and rolling. Likewise they repeated this action 4 times for about 30 second each, to rest. Here the most interesting thing was always that they bit only other’s forelimb (especially upper arm) and [B] was severely bitten by [A], but we could not observe any damages.

Chasing

In the middle of savaging [B] was escaping. It had run towards a tree (height: 2 m), which was about 3 m away and climbed onto a horizontal branch 1 m above ground level. Therewith [A] had followed/chased [B] and also climbed onto the same tree. Then, the chasing male [A] pushed [B] down from the branch. At once [B] ran about 5 m away from the tree base. After that [A] jumped down from the tree and stayed at the tree base, but it did not chase [B] thereafter.”

In another article, Karunarathna and Karunarathna report on Otocryptis flattening themselves on roads at night, presumably to soak up the warmth from the pavement.

Jonathan Losos
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