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Sex Identification of Juvenile Sand Lizards, Lacerta Agilis Using Digital

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Sex Identification of Juvenile Sand Lizards, Lacerta Agilis Using Digital Amphibia-Reptilia (2015) DOI:10.1163/15685381-00002996 Sex identification of juvenile sand lizards, Lacerta agilis using digital images Galina V. Eplanova1, Evgeny S. Roitberg2,∗ Abstract. Sexing neonate animals is necessary for many evolutionary and ecological studies. Yet non-invasive sex identification of neonate reptiles is often problematic because these do not exhibit salient differences in colouration and body proportions. We examined digital images of the ventral body surface in 214 adult or subadult individuals (95 males + 119 females), 59 juveniles (29 + 30), and 156 hatchlings of the Eurasian sand lizard, Lacerta agilis. Two quantitative traits, the number of transverse rows of ventral scales and the width/length ratio of the anal plate, which are easily recordable from digital images and show no substantial correlation with body size, exhibit pronounced sexual dimorphism. A discriminant function derived from these two characters allows correct identification of the sex in 90% of juvenile individuals when males and females of older stages are used as reference samples. Also, we introduce a new qualitative trait, namely the presence/absence of the skin hyperaemia behind cloaca in hatchlings, and provide indirect evidence that this trait is likely to be strongly associated with sex. Keywords: anal plate index, hatchlings, Lacerta agilis, lizards, sex identification, sexual dimorphism, ventral scales. Introduction hatchling lizards: a gentle pressure on tail base elicits everting hemipene(s) in male individu- Sexing neonate animals is a necessary prereq- als. This technique, eventually with slight mod- uisite for many important fields of evolutionary ifications, has been applied in several studies and ecological studies. Data on the secondary (e.g., Olsson et al., 2005; Braña, 2008; Li et al., sex ratio and the sex-specific values of pheno- 2013). Yet for such tiny and fragile creatures typic traits (particularly body size) allow us to address various issues related to sex-allocation as hatchlings of small-sized lizard species, ma- theory (Trivers and Willard, 1973; Olsson et al., nipulations of the kind are potentially stressful, 2005; Uller et al., 2006), ontogeny of sexual size because the study animal should be restrained dimorphism (Badyaev, Whittingham and Hill, either by cooling in a refrigerator, or with the 2001; Le Galliard et al., 2006), and other impor- assistance of a second person (Harlow, 1996). tant topics (e.g., Uller and Olsson, 2003; Braña, Therefore, searching for diagnostic traits in ex- 2008). For lizards, which are a model group for ternal morphology of neonates which would en- studying the evolution of life-histories (Vitt and able an identification of their sex with minimal Pianka, 1994; Shine, 2005), non-invasive sex disturbance for the animal remains an important identification in newborns and juveniles is often methodological issue. Ideally, sexing should be problematic: unlike adults, hatchlings do not ex- possible from digital images which can be eas- hibit salient differences in colouration and body ily archived and examined with no pressure of proportions. Harlow (1996) suggested an effec- time and other constraints for the researcher and tive and apparently harmless method of sexing no stress for the animal. In most lacertid lizards, the number of trans- verse rows of ventral scales (ventralia) differs 1 - Institute of Ecology of the Volga River Basin, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Komzina 10, Togliatti 445003, between the sexes, males having on average 2-3 Russia rows fewer than females (e.g., Darevsky, 1967; 2 - Institute of Integrated Sciences, Department of Biology, Orlova, 1975; Roitberg, 1989). Considering that University of Koblenz-Landau, Universitätsstr. 1, D- 56070 Koblenz, Germany meristic scale counts, such as ventralia, do not ∗Corresponding author; e-mail: [email protected] change after birth (Bauwens and Thoen, 1982; © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2015. DOI:10.1163/15685381-00002996 2 G.V. Eplanova, E.S. Roitberg Roitberg, 1989), several researchers (Bauwens Material and methods and Thoen, 1982; Lecomte, Clobert and Mas- The following samples were used for this study. Sample 1 sot, 1992; Märtens, 1996) tried to distinguish included 214 adult and subadult individuals who were reli- ably sexed based on their colouration, body proportions, and between male and female juveniles using the the presence/absence of hemipenes. These animals come sex-specific distributions of this trait in adults from two sites (Togliatti, 53°28N, 49°21E; Mordovo, 53°10N, 49°27E) located in the Middle Volga Region of from the same locality as reference samples. Russia, i.e. clearly within the range of Lacerta agilis exigua. The extent of sexual differences, and respec- Sample 2 included 59 preserved juveniles of Lacerta agilis tively the discriminating power of ventralia ob- boemica which were collected near Makhachkala (Republic Daghestan, Russia) in early 1980s for other purposes (Roit- viously differ among species and populations. berg, 1989). These juveniles had SVL from 31-52 (mostly In a Zootoca vivipara population from Massif <42) mm and did not show sex-specific external morphol- ogy; they were sexed via autopsy. Sample 3 included 156 Central in France, more than 95% of hatchlings unsexed hatchlings. The hatchlings have been obtained via and juveniles can be correctly sexed based on monitoring of gravid females which were caught from the same sites as sample 1 and held in captivity for a few days or this trait (Lecomte, Clobert and Massot, 1992; weeks until oviposition. Eggs were incubated at 25°C, and Le Galliard et al., 2006), whereas in a Belgian hatchling traits were recorded within 12 hours after hatch- ing. population of this species (Bauwens and Thoen, The following two characters were recorded in all study 1982), as well as in a Lacerta agilis popula- animals: Character 1, the number of transverse rows of ven- tral scales (ventralia). The scales were counted in the sec- tion from eastern Germany (Märtens, 1996), ond longitudinal row from the collar fold to and including less than 75% juveniles could be surely assigned the first scale contacting femoral pores (fig. 1A; see also: to males or females. Searching for further easily Roitberg, 1994). This trait was recorded on the right and the left side of the body to mitigate the bias due to occa- recordable diagnostic traits is therefore needed. sional asymmetry and other deviations from a regular pat- For adult L. agilis, consistent sexual dif- tern of scale rows. Character 2, the width/length ratio of the anal plate, quantifies the extent of elongateness of this scale ferences were reported for the shape of the in the transverse direction. The width and the length were anal plate, this scale tending to be more elon- measured as indicated in fig. 1D, G. Hatchlings were additionally examined for the state of gated transversally in males than in females the skin behind cloaca (Character 3). Two states can be (Darevsky, Shcherbak and Peters, 1976; Ma- distinguished: two short strips (which sometimes merge to a single transverse strip) of hyperaemic skin of rose jláth, Šmajda and Kundrátet, 1997; Zavialov, colour (apparent males, fig. 1B-D), and a lack of the above Tabachishin and Shlyakhtin, 2000; Simonov, pattern (apparent females, fig. 1E-G). The three characters exhibited a high repeatability of records (>98% for all 2007, 2008). However, these reports are based characters) and a considerable sexual dimorphism. on relatively small samples. Furthermore, it is To record the above traits (and three body size charac- unclear, if appreciable sexual differences in the ters) with minimal disturbance of the animal the following protocol was applied to hatchlings. An animal was gently shape of the anal plate also occur in juveniles. taken (caught up) on a concave sheet of paper, placed into This study was aimed to promote methods a Petri dish, and weighted with a digital balance. During weighing the hatchling becomes quiet, and the operator can of non-invasive sex determination of juvenile partly open the cap and gently stretch the hatchling’s body lacertid lizards. We show that in Eurasian sand with a blunt probe or another fine tool. Snout-vent length (SVL) and tail length was recorded by fixing the ruler on lizards (Lacerta agilis) a set of two traits, ven- the outer surface of the dish along the animal’s body axis tralia and the shape of the anal plate, which (fig. 2). This procedure approximates a usual measuring im- mediately on the ventral surface of the body. The routine are easily recordable from digital images, cor- presented here is related to that of Wapstra (2005) who used rectly sexed a vast majority of juveniles. Also, a transparent plastic bag instead of a Petri dish. After mea- suring SVL and tail length, several digital images of the we introduce a new character which describes ventral surface of the body were collected for subsequent the state of the skin behind cloaca in hatchlings recording the traits used in this study. Adults, subadults, and and provide indirect evidence that this trait is preserved juveniles were handled by hands, without placing into Petri dish. Except preserved lizards, all study animals likely to be strongly associated with sex. were released in the localities of their capture. Sex identification of juvenile lizards 3 Figure 1. Ventral body surface of hatchling Lacerta agilis exigua and our study traits. See text for explanations. This figure is published in colour in the online version. Because of a high correlation between the ventralia same way as males and females of samples 1 and 2. In each counts on the left and the right side of the body (r = sample, the proportion of total variance of Z explained by 0.75-0.85, this study) their average value was used as a sex (samples 1 and 2), or by the presence/absence of skin single character. An anal plate index, the Width/Length hyperaemia (sample 3), and the significance of these pre- ratio of this scale (Darevsky et al., 1976; Zavialov et al., dictors were estimated by a one-way ANOVA.
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