Reproductive Ecology of Tropidurus torquatus (Squamata: Tropiduridae) in the Highly Seasonal Cerrado Biome of Central Brazil

Abstract

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Natural history of Micrablepharus maximiliani (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae) in a Cerrado region of northeastern Brazil

“…The Cerrado has two well-defined weather seasons (a drywinter and a rainy-summer), which favor a seasonal reproductive cycle for most inhabitant lizard species (COLLI 1991, VAN SLUYS 1993, WIEDERHECKER et al 2002, COLLI et al 2003, MESQUITA & COLLI 2003. Our results suggest that the reproductive activity of females of M. maximiliani occurs in the dry season.…”

Germinative cells and spermatogenesis of the lizard Tropidurus torquatus (Tropiduridae) from a urban area in the cerrado biome of the brazilian midwest

“…This demonstrates that spermatogenesis in T. torquatus can occur regardless of seasonal variations, the rainy and dry season being the extremes of these variations in Brazil. According to WIEDERHECKER et al (2002), the continuous production of spermatozoa does not require high energy expenditure, and may be a consequence of the high hormone levels needed for territorialism activities. All the locations cited above, are near urban areas or areas with some kind of anthropic activity, such as pastures, fishing or housing.…”

“…Some species have continuous production of spermatozoa, despite the decrease in testicular parameters (e.g. T. torquatus, WIEDERHECKER et al, 2002;ORTIZ et al, 2014). Others have a seasonal reproduction, concentrating spermatogenesis in a specific period, such as T. itambere and T. hispidus (VAN SLUYS et al, 1993;RIBEIRO et al, 2012).…”

A Staging Table of Post‐Ovipositional Development for the South American Collared Lizard Tropidurus torquatus (Squamata: Tropiduridae)

“…It is extremely abundant in open formations (Rodrigues, ) and is commonly found in disturbed environments such as paved areas of capital cities and residence walls. They are sexually dimorphic (Pinto et al, ), medium‐sized lizards with an average snout vent length of 82 mm for females (Wiederhecker et al, ) and 101 mm for males (Pinto et al, ).…”

“…This species is a well‐known model in ecological studies, with many aspects explored such as: diet (Rocha and Bergallo, ; Fialho et al, ; Siqueira et al, ), demography (Wiederhecker et al, ), thermal biology (Bergallo and Rocha, ; Kiefer et al, ), locomotor performance (Kohlsdorf and Navas, ) and reproduction (Vieira et al, ; Wiederhecker et al, ; Ortiz et al, ). However, there is no literature regarding its embryological development.…”