Meeting Abstract
Numerous investigations of the cues for daily and seasonal emergence in reptiles, including those from our lab using side-blotched lizards, have implicated temperature as the primary cue for activity. However, in the field thermal cues are typically confounded by potential photic cues because warm days for emergence are also typically bright, sunny days. Therefore, we performed a laboratory experiment designed to separate the effects of heat and light on the daily activity of side-blotched lizards acclimatized to winter conditions. Lizard emergence correlated with temperature regardless of whether lighting conditions were bright or dim. That is, the timing of daily emergence in the lab supports the role of thermal cues for activity, but failed to reveal any role of photic cues on activity.
