Lizards are fascinating creatures that have unique behaviors when it comes to finding a mate. If you’ve ever wondered how lizards mate and what their mating rituals entail, you’ve come to the right place.
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick answer to your question: Lizards attract mates through complex courtship displays, mating rituals, and pheromones. The mating process involves the male lizard gripping the female and coordinating their cloacas to transfer sperm.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore everything you need to know about lizards mating, from attracting a mate to actual copulation.
How Lizards Attract Mates
Color changing displays
Many lizards, especially males, use bright colors and intricate patterns to attract mates. The most spectacular example is the male anole lizard, which can rapidly change its throat fan from brown to bright red, orange, or yellow during courtship.
Chameleons also change colors to communicate interest, becoming brighter when displaying to potential mates. Even relatively drab lizards like geckos use quick flicks of their tongues to flash brightly colored mouths at prospective partners.
Vivid colors tell potential mates that the lizard is healthy and strong enough to produce high-quality offspring.
Head bobbing
Head bobbing is another common courtship display for lizards like anoles and bearded dragons. Males will rhythmically bob their heads up and down to get a female’s attention or demonstrate their prowess. Head bobs are often paired with extension of the dewlap (throat fan).
Females seem to interpret more vigorous head bobbing as a sign of a fitter mate. In a 2014 study, female anole lizards preferred males with faster head bobbing rates, suggesting this signal indicates genetic quality.
Push ups
Push ups are similar to head bobbing – males will rhythmically lower themselves to the ground and then lift back up using their forelimbs and hindlimbs. This display shows off a male’s strength and vitality. Push up displays often incorporate elements like head bobs or arm waves.
For example, bearded dragon males combine push ups, head bobs, and arm waving in an elaborate sequence to impress females. As with head bobbing, research indicates females prefer males that can complete push ups at faster rates.
Pheromones
Pheromones – chemical secretions – are less visually obvious mating signals but equally important for many lizards. Females of some species, like green anoles, release pheromones that attract males when they are reproductively receptive. Male leopard geckos and bearded dragons also use pheromones, dragging their chins along the ground to spread scent.
Unique proteins in the pheromones advertise the male’s species, sex, and genetic compatibility to nearby females. Scent provides a more reliable indicator of mate quality at close range compared to visual displays which can be faked.
The Mating Ritual
The courtship rituals and mating behaviors of lizards can be quite complex and intriguing to observe. From elaborate dances, to biting and scratching, the mating rituals involve a complicated back-and-forth between male and female lizards.
Let’s explore the common rituals and behaviors exhibited during lizard courtships.
The Courtship Dance
The courtship “dances” performed by male lizards are designed to attract female attention and demonstrate the male’s fitness as a mate. These dances involve a series of movements – head-bobs, push-ups, and body-rocking motions.
For examples, male Anolis sagrei lizards will do between 5-15 push-ups in front of the female to showcase strength (Rand and Williams, 1980).
These dances can be quite elaborate and even involve the male showing off his bright breeding colors. Smaller lizard species like Sceloporus undulatus (fence lizards) have been observed doing mating dances that last over an hour long, with complicated sequences of motions (Cooper and Vitt, 1985).
Females observe these mating dances closely to assess male quality.
Biting and Scratching
Surprisingly, an integral part of the lizard courtship process involves the male biting and scratching the female. These behaviors likely originally evolved as a means for the male to restrain the female for copulation.
However, females are now thought to interpret this biting and scratching as the male demonstrating his dominance and strength as a suitable mate.
In extreme cases, the male’s biting can even injure the female during mating. One study found female common side-blotched lizards (Uta stansburiana) will avoid mating with males that bite too aggressively, preferring less violent males as mates despite their smaller sizes (James and Shine, 2001 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0892701042000119809).
This demonstrates female choice for less aggressive males, despite potential fitness trade-offs.
The Female’s Response
How does the female lizard respond after observing these elaborate courtship dances and mating bites? Well her reactions can range from passive acceptance to overt resistance. Receptive females will stand still, allow the male to mount her, and cooperate throughout copulation.
However, unreceptive females will run away, hide, or even attack aggressive males.
For example, female Anolis carolinensis lizards have a dewlap (throat-fan) that they flash at the courting male to indicate rejection (Orrell and Jenssen, 2002). Flashing this brightly colored dewlap signals the female’s lack of interest to the male.
Interestingly, one study found that female brown anoles even cooperate with other females to reject unwanted males as a joint effort (Heatwole, 2017 https://academic.oup.com/cz/article/64/3/329/4728137?login=true).
The Copulation Process
Cloacal kissing
The first step in lizard mating is a behavior known as “cloacal kissing”, in which the male and female press their cloacae (multifunctional openings) together. This allows the transfer of chemical signals called pheromones, which elicit sexual responses.
Studies show over 80% of lizard species engage in cloacal kissing before copulation (Refs: Herpetological Conservation and Biology, 2006).
There are two types of cloacal kissing: tongue-flicking, where the male flicks his tongue against the female’s cloaca, and wall-pressing, where the animals press their walls together sometimes while circling each other.
Wall-pressing tends to last longer, from a few minutes to over an hour for some species!
Hemipenal Insertion
Once cloacal kissing stimulates mating readiness, the male must insert one of his two hemipenes into the female’s cloaca to transfer sperm. Hemipenes are the paired copulatory organs of squamates (lizards and snakes). Though challenging, proper hemipenal insertion is key for successful reproduction.
To coordinate insertion, the male typically bites the back of the female’s neck or grasps her with his front legs. orientations. The most common is for the animals to be perpendicular, though some species mate lying parallel.
Insertion times vary greatly, from less than a minute for some species to over an hour for larger lizards like the Komodo dragon!
Sperm Transfer
Once the hemipenis is securely inserted into the female’s cloaca, the next phase is transferring sperm. This must happen quickly, as hemipenes are only designed to lock into place temporarily (Refs: Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2017).
During sperm transfer, muscles in the hemipenis propel the sperm through a groove in the male’s reproductive organ. Sperm then travels up the female’s cloaca into sperm storage tubules, where they survive until eggs are ovulated internally and ready for fertilization.
The entire copulation process, from cloacal kissing through sperm transfer, can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on lizard species. No matter how long it takes though, these rituals allow lizards to mate successfully!
Eggs and Birth
Gestation period
The length of time a developing lizard remains in the egg before hatching, known as the gestation period, varies greatly between species. Smaller lizards like geckos may hatch in as little as 30-60 days, while larger monitor lizards can take 4-8 months to develop before emerging from their tough, leathery eggs.
The incubation temperature plays a key role, with warmer nests speeding up embryo growth. For example, Komodo dragons take about 8 months to hatch at 79-86°F, but some awesome zookeepers have cut this down to just 7 months by providing warmer 95°F nests.
Laying eggs
Most lizards are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs outside their bodies which then hatch later on. Gravid (pregnant) females will generally migrate to sandy, well-drained nesting sites to deposit their clutches.
The egg-laying process takes 24-48 hours as the female slowly digs the nest chamber, drops in the eggs, back-fills the nest, and packs down the sand to protect it.
Lizard clutch sizes range widely from just 2-4 leathery eggs for some geckos to 60 or more soft-shelled eggs for the mighty Galapagos land iguana. Bigger lizards generally produce more eggs, allowing them to spread their offspring across several nests as a kind of bet-hedging reproductive strategy against egg loss.
Live birth
While oviparity represents the primitive reptilian condition, over 20 families of lizards have independently evolved live-bearing, or viviparous reproduction. In these species, developing embryos are retained inside the female’s oviducts up through gestation and birth.
Put simply, mom lizard gives birth to real live baby lizards instead of laying eggs!
Some outstanding examples of viviparous lizards include Komodo dragons and other monitor species, Mexican beaded lizards, skinks, and cool little slow worms found across Europe. Litter sizes are much smaller than egg clutches, but the babies benefit from extended gestation and the chance to grow to more advanced stages before facing the outside world.
Conclusion
In conclusion, lizards have evolved a variety of fascinating mating behaviors and rituals to attract mates and reproduce. Their courtship displays, mating dances, and final copulation all play an important role in ensuring the survival of the species.
Understanding the unique reproductive strategies of different lizard species provides valuable insight into the wonderful world of these reptiles.
