Lizard Ethology 
221 
tail-biting aggression so familiar to ob- 
servers of iguanids, or to the tail-tasting 
form of sexual discrimination employed by 
Coleonyx (Greenberg, 1943) ? 
I have observed an increase in the fre- 
quency of “exploratory” tongue-touching of 
Anolis carolinensis when in a new habitat. 
This is much like the tongue-touching of the 
substrate by Sceloporus iarrovi in novel 
situations (DeFazio et al., 1976). Might the 
tongue-touching seen in other species under 
other conditions be a “displacement” deriva- 
tive of such behavior — for example, the 
tongue-touching used in the reinforcement 
of social status by the Amphibolorus 
barbatus (Brattstrom, 1972) or the tongue- 
touching that I have seen during the aggres- 
sive display of Agama agama? 
Anolis carolinensis are occasionally ob- 
served engaging in social grooming during 
shedding (Fig. 16). Might this behavioral 
pattern be comparable to the ectoparasite 
“grooming” of young Iguana (Burghardt, 
1975) or to the food-stealing so often ob- 
served during social feeding of blue spiny 
lizards (Fig. 17) and green anoles (Green- 
berg, 1976b) ? 
Although these suggested relationships 
are hypothetical, they may be of value in 
providing clues about the underlying organi- 
zation of behavior. Particularly, the mechan- 
isms by which autonomic reflexes and frag- 
ments of motor patterns become elaborated 
and progressively brought under the control 
Figure 16. Anolis carolinensis allogrooming. 
Figure 17. Blue spiny lizard hatchlings tug-of-war with mealworm. 
