Side Blotched Lizards (Uta Stansburiana) Territorial Behavior Dependent on Development on Color

Two male side blotched lizards

Two male side-blotched lizards (Uta stansburiana), one with an orange throat and one with a blue throat, have differing strategies for territorial mating grounds. (Source: UC Berkley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology).

Ontogeny is described as the development of a behavior in an individual animal as well as the physiological and environmental factor that contribute to the formation of that behavior. For side-blotched lizards in sex related territorial strategies, the ontogeny is specifically tied to body size and the emergence of throat color after maturation.

As a side-blotched lizard matures it’s throat will change color to fit one of three morphs: yellow (a less common morph not studied in depth), orange (a typically aggressive morph) and blue (the most territorial morph). During studies by biologists at Dartmouth it was found that territorial behaviors performed by these lizards are related specifically to their color morph. The research demonstrated that a differentiation between territory usurping (more common in orange morphs) and territory holding (more common in blue morphs) was tied to body size during the beginning of the season when throat colors had not fully developed but as the season progressed and throat color became evident there was a stronger correlation between territorial strategy and throat color than body size. This demonstrates that the ontogeny of territorial courtship strategies relating to body size and color morphs.