Playing dead to stay alive: death-feigning in Liolaemus occipitalis (Squamata: Liolaemidae)

Santos, Maurício Reginaldo Alves dos; Oliveira, Mauro Cesar Lamim Martins de; Verrastro, Laura; Tozetti, Alexandro Marques

doi:10.1590/s1676-06032010000400043

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(24 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thanatosis has been studied for over a century and appears in a variety of vertebrates and invertebrates. These animals include 8 amphibians (e.g., Gargaglioni et al 2001, Bertoluci et al 2007, birds (e.g., Sargeant & Eberhardt 1975;Rovee et al 1976), fish (e.g., Howe, 1991;Gibran, 2004), mammals (e.g., Francq, 1969;Kimble, 1997), reptiles (e.g., Greene, 1988;Santos et al, 2010;Burghardt & Greene, 1988;Harding, 1997), spiders (e.g., Cloudsley-Thompson, 1995), and a staggering array of insects: beetles (Chemsak & Linsley, 1970;Prohammer and Wade, 1981;Allen, 1990;Oliver, 1996;Acheampong & Mitchell, 1997;Miyatake, 2001a,b;Miyatake et al, 2004), cicada (Villet, 1999), crickets (Nishino & Sakai, 1996), lepidopterans (Tojo et al, 1985;Dudley, 1989;Larsen, 1991), mantids (Edmunds, 1972),…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Dinges

Varnon

Cota

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

View full text Add to dashboard

The current study provides evidence of learned helplessness in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). Bees received either avoidable or unavoidable shock during a discriminative compartment restriction task in an automated shuttle box. Decreased avoidance behavior was observed when bees received unavoidable shock prior to avoidable shock tests, conserving a non-preference response pattern. Prior training with avoidable shock created a preference that was conserved when shock was later unavoidable. Length of the training time impacted how pronounced the conserved behavior was in subsequent tests. Unlike existing learned helplessness studies in other animals, no decrease in general activity was observed. These findings identify honey bees as a unique model organism to explore the process of learned helplessness.v

show abstract

“…Until now, all records of death-feigning behavior previously observed in lizards (with exception of an individual of Liolaemus lutzae and other of Lygosoma punctata), occurred after the specimens being stimulated, including our record (Gluesing 1983;Rocha 1993;Galdino and Pereira 2002;Langkilde et al 2003;Gomes et al 2004;Kosldorf et al 2004;Torres-Cervantes et al 2004;Bertoluci et al 2006;Santos et al 2010;Muscat et al 2016;Patel et al 2016).…”

Section: Palavras-chavementioning

confidence: 56%

“…pretending to be dead) in response to external stimuli (Santos et al 2010). This behaviour could be effective against predators that do not feed on carrion or dead prey, and against those which need movement cues to find and handle further their prey (Toledo et al 2011).…”

Section: Palavras-chavementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This behaviour could be effective against predators that do not feed on carrion or dead prey, and against those which need movement cues to find and handle further their prey (Toledo et al 2011). For lizards, this behaviour is described for the families Crotaphytidae (Gluesing 1983), Dibamidae (Torres- Cervantes et al 2004), Gymnophthalmidae (Muscat et al 2016), Liolaemidae (Rocha 1993;Santos et al 2010), Scincidae (Langkilde et al 2003;Patel et al 2016) and Tropiduridae (Galdino and Pereira 2002;Gomes et al 2004;Kosldorf et al 2004;Bertoluci et al 2006).…”

Section: Palavras-chavementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Death-feigning behaviour in Iphisa elegans: the second reported case in the Family Gymnophthalmidae (Reptilia: Squamata)

Machado-Filho

Maffei

2018

Acta Amaz.

View full text Add to dashboard

Death-feigning behaviour occurs when the animal simulates a state of immobility. This behaviour is described for some lizard families, among them the family Gymnophthalmidae with only one record. Iphisa elegans is a diurnal and terrestrial Amazonian lizard, it has cryptic behavior and moves rapidly on the ground, hindering observations of its behavior. We report a case at the Comodoro Municipality, Mato Grosso State, Brazil: an adult male of I. elegans, when manipulated, turned its venter up and put itself in a death-feigning posture. This species is preyed by birds, snakes and other lizards¸ possibly behaving this way when the cryptic behaviour or scape attempt fails. More studies are necessary to observe the efficiency of this behaviour, as well as the frequency that it occurs, using individuals of both sexes. We also suggested to evaluate if the orange venter of males could have any antipredation advantage. KEYWORDS:Reptiles, Ethology, Antipredator Display, Lizard, Thanatosis.Comportamento de tanatose em Iphisa elegans: o segundo caso na Família Gymnophthalmidae (Reptilia: Squamata) RESUMO Fingir-se de morto é um comportamento no qual o animal simula um estado de imobilidade. Esse comportamento é descrito em algumas famílias de lagartos, dentre as quais, a família Gymnophthalmidae com apenas um registro. Iphisa elegans é um lagarto amazônico diurno e terrestre. Possui comportamento críptico e move-se rapidamente pelo solo, dificultando observações de seu comportamento. Reportamos o primeiro caso no município de Comodoro, Estado do Mato Grosso, Brasil: um macho adulto de I. elegans, quando manipulado, virou seu ventre para cima e fingiu-se de morto. Esta espécie é predada por pássaros, serpentes e outros lagartos, possivelmente portando-se dessa forma quando o comportamento críptico ou tentativa de fuga falham. São necessários mais estudos para observar a eficiência desse comportamento, assim como a frequência de ocorrência, usando indivíduos de ambos os sexos. Também sugerimos que deve ser avaliado se a coloração alaranjada no ventre dos machos poderia fornecer alguma vantagem antipredação.

show abstract

“…Tonic immobility has been observed in a variety of animals including fish (Tobler 2005, Wells et al 2005, amphibians (Toledo et al, 2010), reptiles (Gehlbach, 1970;Edson and Gallup, 1972;Hennig et al, 1979;Santos et al, 2010) birds (Sargeant and Eberhardt, 1975), and mammals (Fraser, 1960;Francq, 1969;Carli, 1974), and TI in invertebrates also appears to be common (as reviewed in Coutinho et al, 2013). However, as far as I know, TI has not been documented in sea turtle hatchlings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The energetics of nest escaping by turtle hatchlings

Rusli¹

View full text Add to dashboard

Turtles lay their eggs on land in underground nests and embryos take about two months to incubate to hatching. During this time, turtle embryos grow in size and consume much of the yolk that was deposited in the egg when it was laid. During the hatching process, and sometimes continuing for a period of 24-48 h after hatching, the residual yolk is absorbed into the abdominal cavity. The residual yolk acts as an energy reserve that powers the nest escape process and hatchling growth and development until feeding begins, which can be days or weeks after nest escape. Previous studies have reported the energetic cost of embryonic development across Chelonian taxa, but none has quantified the energy needed to escape the nest after hatching. This study used open-flow respirometry and bomb calorimetric analysis to measure metabolic expenditure of turtle hatchlings during simulated nest escape. Digging activity was monitored simultaneously with metabolic rate to determine the pattern of digging effort, energy expenditure, and the total energetic cost per individual during nest escape. Two species of chelonian were used in this study; the Brisbane river turtle (Emydura macquarii signata) and green turtle (Chelonia mydas).The first part of the study quantified the energy expended by hatchlings during nest escape. The Brisbane river turtle and green turtle hatchlings were found to fuel this activity by using approximately 5-36 % and 11 -68% respectively of their residual yolk reserve energy. This energy expenditure was then put into an energy budget context by comparing it to the energy in a freshly laid egg, the energy used during embryonic development, and the energy contained within the residual yolk of newly hatched hatchlings. The second part of the study examined the phenomenon of 'social facilitation', a term that has been coined to describe how interactions between nest mates facilitate the nest escape process. The hypothesis behind this concept, that escaping the nest in a larger group is more advantageous than in a smaller group, was tested by splitting a clutch into different sized groups and measuring the time taken to dig a set distance upwards, and calculating the per-individual metabolic cost of nest escape. Both the time taken to escape the nest and the energetic cost of nest escape decreased as the number of individuals digging together increased and thus supports the 'social facilitation' hypothesis which suggests hatchlings cooperate to share the workload of digging out of the nest among clutch mates to reduce individual energy expenditure.Lastly, because freshwater turtle can construct their nest in a wide range of soil types, the time taken and the energy required by the same number of hatchlings to dig through two different soil types was quantified. Brisbane river turtle hatchlings digging through fine sand escaped faster and spent less energy than hatchlings through coarse sand. Moreover, larger group size provided a clear energetic advantage while digging out of the nest in both soil types t...

show abstract

Playing dead to stay alive: death-feigning in Liolaemus occipitalis (Squamata: Liolaemidae)

Cited by 18 publications

References 25 publications

Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Death-feigning behaviour in Iphisa elegans: the second reported case in the Family Gymnophthalmidae (Reptilia: Squamata)

The energetics of nest escaping by turtle hatchlings

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About