Exploring Sound Emission of the Lizard .

Lizards, except geckos, are generally considered voiceless organisms, although some species emit oral sounds. For most of these "vocal lizards", however, there is almost no information on the characteristics of the sounds, precluding exploration of the functionality and evolution of the sounds. are known as "grunter lizards" since individuals emit oral sounds under predation risk.

Response of the weeping lizard to distress calls: the effect of witnessing predation.

Escaping from predation saves life, but costs energy and time. The "threat-sensitive predator-avoidance" hypothesis proposes that prey may modulate their antipredator responses, and thus the associated costs, in accordance with the magnitude of predation risk. This process requires that prey accurately assess this risk by decoding available information from various sources.

Geographic variation in the matching between call characteristics and tympanic sensitivity in the Weeping lizard.

Effective communication requires a match among signal characteristics, environmental conditions, and receptor tuning and decoding. The degree of matching, however, can vary, among others due to different selective pressures affecting the communication components. For evolutionary novelties, strong selective pressures are likely to act upon the signal and receptor to promote a tight match among them.

Lizard predation by spiders: A review from the Neotropical and Andean regions.

Vertebrate predation by invertebrates has been classically underexplored and thus underestimated, despite the fact that many arthropods consume vertebrates. To shed some light on the relevance that spider predation may have upon lizards in the Neotropical and Andean regions, we compiled the available information in the literature on this trophic interaction. We found 50 reports of spiders consuming lizards in these regions, and the 88% of these were from the Neotropical region.

Without a body of evidence and peer review, taxonomic changes in Liolaemidae and Tropiduridae (Squamata) must be rejected.

In his recent self-published book "Reptiles en Chile", Diego Demangel Miranda presented 13 taxonomic changes for liolaemid and tropidurid lizards. While these could be considered validly published according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, we show that these taxonomic propositions lack the necessary scientific rigor in terms of replicability, specimen work, lack of peer review and that they do not follow best practices accepted by the herpetological community. Therefore, we hereby invalidate all 13 taxonomic changes proposed in this book, leaving the taxonomy unaffected.

The songs of male pied flycatchers: exploring the legacy of the fathers.

Singing is a key element of songbirds' behavioral repertoire, particularly for males, which sing during the breeding season to defend resources against other males and to attract females. Different song traits may convey honest information about males' qualities or conditions, which may be used by females to select their mates. Traits under strong sexual selection have an important component of additive genetic variation (i.

Comparing the antipredator behaviour of two sympatric, but not syntopic, Liolaemus lizards.

The microhabitat preferences of prey animals can modulate how they perceive predation risk, and therefore, their antipredator behaviour. We tested under standardized conditions how microhabitat preferences of two Liolaemus lizards affected their responses when confronted with two types of ambush predators (raptor vs. snake), under two levels of predation risk (low vs.

Advancement of spring arrival in a long-term study of a passerine bird: sex, age and environmental effects.

In migratory birds, mistimed arrival might have negative consequences for individual fitness, causing population declines. This may happen if arrival time is not synchronized with breeding time, especially when earlier springs favour earlier reproduction. We studied spring arrival time to the breeding areas in a pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca population in southern Norway during a 30-year period (1985-2014).

Identification and molecular characterization of five putative toxins from the venom gland of the snake Philodryas chamissonis (Serpentes: Dipsadidae).

Philodryas chamissonis is a rear-fanged snake endemic to Chile. Its bite produces mild to moderate symptoms with proteolytic and anti-coagulant effects. Presently, the composition of the venom, as well as, the biochemical and structural characteristics of its toxins, remains unknown.

The relation between hairpin formation by mitochondrial WANCY tRNAs and the occurrence of the light strand replication origin in Lepidosauria.

Mitochondrial light strand DNA replication is initiated at light strand replication origins (OLs), short stem-loop hairpins formed by the heavy strand DNA. OL-like secondary structures are also formed by heavy strand DNA templating for the five tRNAs adjacent to OLs, the WANCY tRNA cluster. We tested whether natural OL absence associates with greater capacities for formation of OL-like structures by WANCY tRNA genes.

Tetracoding increases with body temperature in Lepidosauria.

Codons expanded by a silent position (quadruplet or tetracodons) may solve the conundrum that at life's origins, the weak tricodon-anticodon interactions could not promote translation in the absence of complex ribosomes. Modern genomes have isolated tetracodons resulting from insertion mutations. Some bioinformatic analyses suggest that tetracoding stretches overlap with regular mitochondrial protein coding genes.

Evolution of thermal physiology in Liolaemus lizards: adaptation, phylogenetic inertia, and niche tracking.

Microevolutionary studies often find that complex quantitative characters are highly evolvable and adapted to the local environment, while macroevolutionary studies often show evidence of strong phylogenetic effects and stasis. In this contribution, we show how phylogenetic comparative methods can be used to test hypotheses that may help resolve this paradox. As a test case, we studied the interplay between adaptation and phylogenetic inertia on the thermobiology of 32 species of Liolaemus (Squamata: Liolaemidae), a genus of South American lizards living under diverse climatic conditions.

Heterogeneity of voltage- and chemosignal-activated response profiles in vomeronasal sensory neurons.

Liolaemus lizards were explored to ascertain whether they would make an amenable model to study single-cell electrophysiology of neurons in the vomeronasal organ (VNO). Despite a rich array of chemosensory-related behaviors chronicled for this genus, no anatomical or functional data exist for the VNO, the organ mediating these types of behaviors. Two Liolaemus species (L.

Age and season affect chemical discrimination of Liolaemus bellii own space.

We explored chemical discrimination of own vs. novel space by different age classes (neonates, juveniles, and adults) of the lizard Liolaemus bellii, during pre- and post-hibernation seasons. We recorded the number of tongue flicks (TF) lizards produced during 10 min in their own or a novel enclosure.

Chemical composition of precloacal secretions of two Liolaemus fabiani populations: are they different?

The chemical composition of secretions of precloacal pores from two populations of the lizard Liolaemus fabiani (Puilar and Punta-Brava) were compared. This is an endemic species from the Atacama Salt Flat (26 degrees 46'S 68 degrees 14'W; 2400 m) in northern Chile, restricted to the internal lakes of the salt flat. Interpopulational differences in the chemical composition of the secretions were expected considering that populations have genetic differences and are subject to different thermal conditions.