334 
Discussion 
information. There is sex recognition, repro- 
ductive condition, territorial ownership, etc. 
RUIBAL: I agree, a great deal of informa- 
tion is being sent. It is clear that solitary 
anoles have as complex a display repertoire 
as those living with other congeneric forms. 
Therefore, the phrase that was being used, 
“the display is for the identification of a 
conspecific,” may not be valid. I’m not sure 
that any display is necessary for identifica- 
tion of a conspecific. I think that conspecifics 
are identified much easier than that. I suggest 
a little restraint in the hypothetical condi- 
tions that were set up. You have some very 
good methods of detailed analysis to show 
the differences between displays, but I gather 
that at this point there has been very little 
analysis of what these movements mean to 
another lizard. 
G. FERGUSON: Correct. 
PETERSON ; An important point from my 
perspective is that the perceived conspicu- 
ousness of a display within any given context 
will depend on the visual system of the 
observer, whether congener or predator. In 
cases where information is exchanged be- 
tween individuals via visual signals, we can 
expect that the characteristics of those visual 
signals will have evolved together with the 
responses to them, as demonstrated (for 
auditory signals) by Roeder in his study of 
moths and bats, and by Straughan in his 
analysis of species recognition in Hyla. The 
visual system properties of those species 
which respond to a visual signal, such as a 
display, are as much a part of the context 
of that behavior as is the displaying animal’s 
morphology or structural niche. Thus there 
is a real need to understand the visual system 
physiology of the species involved in these 
social or predator-prey systems if we are to 
fully appreciate the adaptive strategies that 
have evolved. 
GREENBERG to JENSSEN: Have you 
ever seen the tongue being used to lick the 
substrate during a display in the manner of 
the Agamas I had described? 
.lENSSEN : I have seen substrate licks 
performed by all the anoline species I have 
observed. However, the substrate lick does 
not appear to be a part of any display. It 
usually occurs while a male is patrolling his 
territory and he is just about to move or has 
just moved; this is also the most frequent 
time to expect a signature display. Substrate 
licks are also frequently observed when a 
male is placed in a novel situation, for in- 
stance in a new cage. 
QUESTION: Were your observed nebio- 
losus from a single population? 
JENSSEN: Yes. All were collected from 
Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico. 
QUESTION: Is there a correlation in the 
Tepic population of nebulosus between dura- 
tion of display and age or size? 
JENSSEN : I tried to correlate display dura- 
tion versus snout-vent length. No correlations 
emerged. There was only a slight tendency 
as animals got older for their displays to get 
longer. 
REGAL : If one plotted the lizards’ display 
durations it would not be a Gaussian (nor- 
mal) distribution; it would be linear. It looks 
as if they were almost deliberately splitting 
the available information. If differences 
between the lizards’ display durations were 
genetic variability then you would expect a 
Gaussian distribution. 
JENSSEN: That is a good point; it would 
agree with my suggestion that intraindivid- 
ual stereotype functions as individual recog- 
nition signals. 
QUESTION: Did you ever observe a cor- 
relation between duration of display and 
temperature for nebulosus? 
JENSSEN: No, however, an individual’s 
displays were filmed under many temperature 
conditions, such as in the morning when the 
lab was cool and then progressing through 
the filming session it would get bloody hot 
under the flood lamps. The lizards never got 
to the point that they were panting, but 
they were exposed to a wide range of tem- 
peratures and still I found narrow confidence 
limits. If the lizards are going to separate 
themselves out for, say, individual recogni- 
tion on the basis of display duration, they will 
have to maintain consistent durations under 
a wide range of temperatures in their natural 
habitat. 
