Agonistic and courtship behaviour patterns in the skink Chalcides viridanus (Fam. Scincidae) from Tenerife

Abstract

There have been relatively few attempts to quantitatively describe behaviours in scincid lizards. Chalcides viridanus is a small body-sized skink endemic of Tenerife (Canary Islands). We describe and quantify 18 behaviour patterns (both social and agonistic) of this species, some of which have not been described before for other scincids. Video recordings of male-male, female-female, and malefemale interactions were made under laboratory conditions, with controlled light-dark cycle and temperature. We describe several agonistic and courtship behaviour patterns. Within the first context, we detected a new agonistic behaviour for a scincid, "Snout to body", that appeared at the beginning of agonistic sequences; it consisted of each animal placing its snout in contact with the other individual's lateral side of the body. The amplitude of head movement during "Head bobbing" was lower than that described for many other lizard species. Agonistic behaviours were shown in intrasexual staged encounters both within males and females. The comparison of behaviour patterns of both types of intrasexual encounters showed that females were more active, exhibiting significantly higher frequencies of behaviour than males. Specifically, females showed the "Snout to body" pattern more frequently than males. In male-female encounters we detected courtship and copulation patterns only in April, when males performed "Bites" and "Snout to body" directed at females.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Agonistic Behaviour in Juvenile Crocodilians

“…The inflated tail sweeping by aggressive CNG provided subordinates with a clear warning of aggressive intent, giving them time to take flight and avoid an attack. A similar behaviour has also been observed in skinks, and is described as ‘tail lashing’, which precedes biting and chasing [41] [46] .…”

Aggressive Behaviors and Their Effect on Resource Use by Male Little Brown Skinks, Scincella Lateralis

“…Dominant male Little Brown Skinks also bit their opponents much more often than they were bitten by their opponents, though the difference fails to reach statistical significance because the subordinate skinks sometimes bit back (Table 2). Biting is also a common behavior exhibited by skinks; it has been documented previously in Little Brown Skinks (Akin 1998) and many other skink species (Cooper and Vitt 1987;Torr and Shine 1996;Jennings and Thompson 1999;Stapley 2006;Fenner and Bull 2010;Sanchez-Hernandez et al 2012). Though chases, lunges, and biting are the most dramatic aggressive behaviors exhibited by adult male Little Brown Skinks, by far the most common behavior exhibited was avoidance of the dominant male by the subordinate male.…”

“…If both males were moving when they approached each other, the subordinate male either abruptly changed direction and ran off or darted around the dominant male; in either case, the subordinate male often ran to the side of the observation chamber opposite the side occupied by the dominant male. This behavior is again commonly seen in skinks (Perrill 1980;Zwickel and Allison 1986;Cooper and Vitt 1987;Whittier and Martin 1992;Sanchez-Hernandez et al 2012), including Little Brown Skinks (Akin 1998). The behaviors chase/lunge, bite, and avoid are probably common to skinks in general and play an important role in establishing and maintaining dominance relationships.…”

“…Many other species of skinks assert dominance by chasing their rivals (e.g. Zwickel and Allison 1986;Torr and Shine 1996;Jennings and Thompson 1999;Sanchez-Hernandez et al 2012). Dominant male Little Brown Skinks also bit their opponents much more often than they were bitten by their opponents, though the difference fails to reach statistical significance because the subordinate skinks sometimes bit back (Table 2).…”

Better to be resident, larger or coloured? Experimental analysis on intraspecific aggression in the ruin lizard

“…For the videotape dataset, we used BORIS (Behavioural Observation Research Interactive Software, available at: http://www.boris.unito.it/; Friard & Gamba, ), setting up the ethogram detailed in Table . According to previous literature (Torr & Shine, ; Langkilde, Schwarzkopf & Alford, ; Huyghe et al ., ; Sánchez‐Hernández, Ramírez‐Pinilla & Molina‐Borja, ), we considered (1) aggressive behaviours, those as raised posture on all fours legs, buckle back, flank exposure, mouth opening, bites; and (2) subordination behaviours those as tail swing, posture, attempts to escape or seek shelter and the relative time spent in those attempts (Aragón et al ., ; Carazo et al ., ; Sacchi et al ., ). The different amount of time spent in each recorded pattern was coded to assess different levels of aggressiveness, thus defining dominance (D) or subordination (S) patterns for the individuals involved in the tests, for both residence and arena contests (Table ).…”