A National Taiwan Normal University research team has published a paper on lizards’ autotomy rates, real predation pressures and the long-term cost of tail loss.
While it was suspected that caudal autotomy, or the self-amputation of the tail, is related to lizards’ survival, the relative lack of research of the action under natural conditions has been the main obstacle to verifying the theory, said the paper, published on Jan. 18 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal.
The research team began a capture-mark-recapture (CMR) program in 2006 using the the sexually dichromatic Takydromus viridipunctatus, commonly known as the Formosan grass lizard, to compile an index, Lin said.
The team used the indices and a contemporary bird census mega-dataset of four predatory birds, based on Chinese Wild Bird Association data from 1970, as predictors to examine the association between tail loss and predation pressure, said Lin Jhan-wei (林展蔚), the lead author who is a doctoral student at the university’s Department of Life Science.
The team also estimated the survival cost of tail loss and alleviation by regeneration under natural conditions through CMR modeling, Lin said.
The researchers found that smaller birds, such as shrikes and kestrels, were the major cause of autotomy, while larger birds, such as the cattle egret, caused a depopulation of lizards, Lin said.
The survival rates of lizards after autotomy dropped to 20 to 30 percent compared with those that still had tails, Lin said, adding that after regeneration the mortality rates returned to a baseline, showing the relationship between the lizard’s tail and its survival.
“This study ... increases our understanding of the cost-benefit dynamics of caudal autotomy and further explains the maintenance of this trait as an evolutionarily beneficial adaption to long-term predator-prey interactions,” the paper said.
Lin said he would continue researching how the lizard’s tail facilitates its movement.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching