Lizards Have Languages and Dialects!

Have you ever seen lizards do push ups?

This is how they communicate with each other. This is how the males show off the blue patches on the sides of their bellies. The darker the blue, the more mature the male.

Both male and female Yarrow’s spiny lizards, Sceloporus jarrovii, are territorial.

These push ups tell rivals not to even try it. From male to female, the pushups signify that the males are a good mate.

Now it may make sense that the sequence of the pushups would vary from species to species almost like each species have their own languages. A 2005 study on Yarrow’s spiny lizards in the Madrean Sky Islands, mountain ranges isolated by lowland deserts, showed that within the species, different populations sequences varied. They had different dialects!

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