SREL Reprint #1814

Reptilian coloration and behavior

William E. Cooper, Jr., and Neil Greenberg

Introduction: The coloration and color patterns of animals strongly influence numerous aspects of their behavior, especially social behavior, predatory and antipredatory behavior, and maintenance, including thermoregulation. Because the potentially optimal coloration may differ for each of several roles and may vary in time and space, the resultant coloration may in many cases best be viewed as an adaptive compromise between conflicting selective pressures exerted by social, predatory, antipredatory, thermoregulatory, and perhaps other demands. However, such compromises are more often mentioned than documented experimentally.
An example of compromise is seen in the bright display colors of many iguanid, lacertid, and teiid lizards. Many of these colors are located ventrally or ventrolateraly and may be revealed by display postures for social communication, but at other times remain concealed, thus reducing risk of predation (Endler, 1980). Similarly, the bright dewlap coloration of anoles is hidden except when it is revealed during brief behavioral displays. Presumably, predation pressure selects for phasic rather than tonic, continually visible, displays of color. Furthermore, some predators are cryptic to avoid detection by their prey. Alternatively, the efficiency of communication may be enhanced by restricting visibility of chromatic signals except in their specific functional contexts. Being subject to diverse selective pressures, coloration may reflect underlying homeostatic dynamics of multiple physiological systems. Finally, body color, like behavior, is an external manifestation of the internal state of the animal and is arrayed on a continuum of temporal stability from obligate morphological and developmental states to states responding rapidly to short-term environmental change.

SREL Reprint #1814

Cooper, W.E., Jr. and N. Greenberg. 1992. Reptilian coloration and behavior. pp. 298-422 In: C. Gans and D. Crews. (Eds.). Biology of the Reptilia. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).