The long bite of the alligator lizard
Have you ever seen a lizard biting the head of another lizard for a long time? Were they both alligator lizards? If so, this is mating behavior and a project in southern California is studying this behavior.
The project is led by Greg Pauly, the Curator of Herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the lead scientist for the Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California (RASCals) project on iNaturalist. He has been using observations on iNaturalist to study alligator lizard mating behavior for the past decade. You can learn more about this research here:
Project Web Page: https://nhm.org/stories/look-out-amorous-alligator-lizards
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtUFZMEt1Fw&fbclid=
Three takeaways from the study are:
Wet years are the big breeding years. Lizards like years with early-season rainfall. Good December rains yield springs with lots of lizard mating activity.
Weather has a big impact on mating activity. Lizards like it hot. They pause mating in cold, wet conditions.
Lizards can stay paired up for over two days!
When to watch for this behavior?
Greg explained that for the Northern Alligator Lizard in the Point Reyes area, mating observations are likely to start in April and go through June. Mating observations for the Southern Alligator Lizard will be about a month later in early May (although Southern Alligator Lizards are largely east of Hwy 1 ---so not really a Point Reyes species).
Share your observations from 2024 or earlier
Do you have any old photos or videos of alligator lizards mating? Share them on iNaturalist and tag https://www.inaturalist.org/people/gregpauly or email them to nature@nhm.org.
Along with your photo or video, tell Greg a bit more about the location. Was this in a residential area? If so, was this in a backyard, front yard, etc. He keeps track of exact locations to highlight that many of our observations are made around human residences. Please also let him know if this was from your residence. To protect people's privacy, he handles the locality data slightly differently if it is from the observer's residence. How long did the biting last?
alligator lizard mating is…very bitey