USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
Hitting the Ground Running: Environmentally Cued Hatching in a Lizard
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
ISSN
0045-8511
Abstract
Evidence is accumulating for the ability of animal embryos to hatch early in response to the immediate threat of egg predation. However, early hatching in response to predation is known from only amphibians, fish, and invertebrates. Herein we present the first quantitative evidence for induced early hatching in a reptile. In two laboratory experiments, delicate skink (Lampropholis delicata) embryos responded to a surrogate predator cue-vibrations-by hatching similar to 3 days earlier than their spontaneously hatching clutchmates. Early hatching embryos were significantly smaller and left more residual yolk in their eggs, however, suggesting a cost to hatching early. Assuming our vibrations were interpreted as an increase in predation risk, skink embryos can thus forego some yolk absorption and growth when threatened by imminent predation. Simulated predation experiments in the field induced hatching in both nest sites ( horizontal rock crevices) and in eggs displaced from nest sites. The hatching process was explosive: early hatching embryos hatched in seconds and sprinted from the egg an average of similar to 40 cm as they hatched. Our results are unusual in demonstrating early hatching in a terrestrial animal with a simple life cycle, and likely extend predation-induced early hatching to reptiles. Early hatching may be widespread in oviparous vertebrates.
Language
en_US
Publisher
AMER SOC ICHTHYOLOGISTS & HERPETOLOGISTS
Recommended Citation
"Hitting the Ground Running: Environmentally Cued Hatching in a Lizard," 2013(1) J. Sean Doody, Phillip Paull Copeia (27 March 2013)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Citation only. Full-text article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.