Hemipenes eversion behavior: a new form of communication in two Liolaemus lizards (Iguania: Liolaemidae)

PAZ VERÓNICA ALEJANDRA; RUIZ MONACHESI, MARIO; QUIPILDOR ANGEL MATIAS

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY

NATL RESEARCH COUNCIL CANADA-N R C RESEARCH PRESS

Lugar: Otawa; Año: 2018 vol. 97 p. 187 - 194

0008-4301

Males of several animals have intromittent organs and may use these in a communicativecontext during sexual or intrasexual interactions. In some lizards there have been observations ofhemipenes eversion behavior, and the aim of this study is to find out whether this behavior isfunctionally significant, under a communicative approach. Here, we investigated hemipenes´eversion in two species of Liolaemus (L. coeruleus Cei and Ortiz-Zapata, 1983 and L. quilmesEtheridge, 1993) by filming the response of male focal lizards in different experimental settings:(1) - an agonistic context i.e., with a conspecific male; (2)- a sexual context, i.e., with aconspecific female and (3)- a control treatment, i.e., without a treatment lizard. In both species,focal lizards showed this behavior only in agonistic contexts, with interspecific differences. L.coeruleus has longer times until eversion and dragging of hemipenes; however, it has shortertime of eversion and exposition of hemipenes. While L. quilmes, has an opposite pattern withrespect to L. coeruleus. These indicate that hemipenes´ eversion can act as a visual display and asa signal of aggressive behavior towards conspecific rival males. The present study offers a new,behavioral perspective on the use of masculine genitalia in lizards.