Compared with our extensive knowledge of male-male interactions, we know very little about how females interact with one another. Adding to a growing set of observations, here is some video (taken by my field assistant and seasoned anole videographer Jon Suh) of two bead-tagged female brown anoles mid-battle.
Both females are recent arrivals to this particular tree, and the lizard that remains on the tree at the end is marginally bigger than the one who leaves. Though I don’t think we witnessed the full interaction, I think it’s interesting that the females didn’t use their dewlaps in the course of this fight. This seems to match up with Ellee Cook’s description of a fight between two female A. gundlachi. The use of the dewlap by females has been observed during male-female interactions in A. cristatellus, A. armouri and a few other species, but also during female-female interactions in some Central American anoles. Clearly we’ve got a long way to go before we characterize and understand agonistic encounters and display behaviour in female anoles!
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Stephanie
What is that fleshy bit at the base of both of their tails? Is that normal for females, or only exposed during fights?
Ambika Kamath
I should have mentioned that these animals are tagged with bead-tags, as part of a long-term behavioural study (www.ambikamath.wordpress.com/lizards)…maybe you’re looking at the tags?
Stephanie
Yes! it all makes sense now.