INTRODUCTION 
Parental behavior is a significant aspect of the life history of a wide 
variety of animal taxa. Parental behavior is common to the vertebrate classes 
Osteichthyes (Blumer, 1979, 1982; Perrone and Zaret, 1979; Baylis, 1981; 
Gittleman, 1981; Gross and Sargent, 1985), Amphibia (McDiarmid, 1978; Wells, 
1981; Nussbaum, 1985; Duellman and Trueb, 1986), and universal within the Aves 
(Kendeigh, 1952; Skutch, 1957, 1976; Welty, 1982; Silver et al., 1985) and 
Mammalia (Kleiman and Malcolm, 1981; Dewsbury, 1985; Kleiman, 1985; Malcolm, 
1985). In contrast, relatively few reptiles exhibit parental behavior (Tinkle 
and Gibbons, 1977; Shine and Bull, 1979; Shine, 1985, 1988). Parental 
behavior is common in living crocodilians (Greer, 1970, 1971; Lang, 1987; 
Shine, 1988) and also may have been common in extinct archosaurs (Horner and 
Makela, 1979; Coombs, 1982; Horner, 1982, 1984, 1987; Horner and Gorman, 1988) 
and cynodonts (Graves and Duvall, 1983; Duvall, 1986). Accounts of parental 
behavior in four turtle species (Gopherus agassizii: Barrett and Humphrey, 
1986; G. flavomarginatus: Carr, 1952; Janulaw and Appleton cited in Morafka, 
1982; Appleton, 1986; Ernst and Barbour, 1989; Manouria emys: Louwman, 1982; 
McKeown et al., 1982; Trachemys stejnegeri malonei: Hodsdon and Pearson, 
1943) are remarkable, because turtles generally lack any form of parental 
behavior (Shine, 1988; Ernst and Barbour, 1989). The purpose of this review 
is to survey the various categories of parental behavior reported for 
lepidosaurians (lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians and a rhychocephalian) and to 
provide an extensive bibliography as a guide to current and future 
researchers. 
The phrase "parental care" refers to all nongametic and postfertilization 
contributions of parents to the survival of their offsprings (Wittenburger, 
1981; Blumer, 1982) and is construed by some (Williams, 1966; Baylis, 1981; 
Keenleyside, 1981; Gross and Sargent, 1985; Congdon, 1989; Spotila and 
O'Connor, 1989) to include viviparity and other physiological contributions. 
I use the phrase "parental behavior" to limit the scope of this survey to all 
behavioral contributions by the parent to offspring survival after oviposition 
or parturition. Behaviors associated exclusively with oviposition and nest 
construction are not included in this survey; they are probably common to most 
oviparous lepidosaurians (Hahn, 1909; Hilzheimer, 1910; Blanchard, 1933; Carl, 
1944; Carpenter, 1966; Platt, 1969; Rand and Rand, 1976; Duvall et al., 1979; 
Jones and Guillette, 1982; Green and Pauley, 1987). 
The term "brooding" describes behaviors of the parent while attending the 
nest and progeny (sensu Somma, 1988; also see Pope, 1961; Peters, 1964; 
Carpenter and Ferguson, 1977). Thus, brooding does not include territorial, 
nest-site defense wherein the parent remains at a distance from the nest, and 
not in or on the nest or progeny, as seen in some iguanine and gekkonid 
lizards, and the tuatara. 
