Meeting Abstract

92.2  Thursday, Jan. 7  Predation and tail autotomy in Anolis lizards REVELL, Liam J.*; LOVELY, Karen R.; MAHLER, D. Luke; National Evolutionary Synthesis Center; Harvard University; Harvard University lrevell@nescent.org

Caudal autotomy is common in reptiles, where it is most often used as a defense mechanism against predatory attacks. We used the distribution of caudal vertebrae number from large collections of five species of Puerto Rican Anolis lizards to fit and compare alternative models for tail loss. These models contained different attributes including a parameter describing the relative probability of mortality vs. autotomy during a predatory encounter, and the relative strength of the lizard tail across its length. We found, in general, very good fit between our mathematical models and empirical data. We also found some evidence that ecologically and morphologically similar anoles were also more similar in their best-fitting predation models. Both results suggest that our methods might yield interesting insights if applied to a broader sample of lizard species.