Lizards are smarter than you think

The results suggest that lizards have the ability to communicate socially, making them more intelligent than previously thought, the University of Bern said Monday. Lizards communicate with other lizards using chemicals derived from their own skin and excrement.

We humans and some animals can recognize ourselves visually in the mirror. But not all animals rely primarily on sight. Geckos use their tongues to detect chemicals called pheromones from other individuals. For example, when climbing a wall, lizards pause for tongue. This allows them to identify potential partners or competitors.

For the study, researchers from the University of Bern presented 22 tokehs, a species of gecko with various scents, on cotton swabs. In addition to their own scents, these were scents from other lizards or control scents such as water and mint. The lizards were more concerned with the skin chemicals of other lizards than they were themselves. Lizards exhibited two types of behavior to detect the smell on the cotton swab: on the one hand, they stretched their tongue towards the smell on the stick, and on the other hand, they extended their tongue towards the environment in the enclosure.

The researchers interpreted this behavior as the lizards first detecting the scent on the cotton swab and then comparing it to their own scent on the enclosure walls. “Gekos had to make comparisons more frequently when they encountered the scent of another lizard than their own.

(SDA)

Source : Blick