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Living Habits of Reptiles (Part 9)© Janat Khatoon
Oct 24, 2001
The most obvious kind of communion between living beings of separate kinds is the predator-prey relation. The hognose snake eats a toad and then is eaten by a king snake. A monitor lizard eats the eggs of a crocodile and then the crocodile that laid the eggs eats one day. Of 10,000 sea turtles that hatch on a beach perhaps to, or perhaps too, escape bird and mammal predators on the shore and fishes waiting beyond the surf. Such violent interplay among living things is important, but order less violent relationships are perhaps equally so. There are diverse kinds and shades of advantageous contacts, not only among the members of a single species, but also among the various species that share a living place. In the case of every reptile, some time is spent by the sexes in finding one another, courting and mating. Snakes gather for hibernation, the grouping furthers turtles mass for migration and breeding, and in each case the function. On the other hand, sharing foraging territory invites combat and strife, so we find that snakes and lizards, and evidently crocodilians and turtles too, tend to stake out, and more or less actively defend as their own, areas of the habitat. Except for the sexual and territorial behaviour of a few species, the whole subject of sociality in reptiles has not been adequately investigated, but enough is known to suggest that there is much to be learned about it.
Just as the individual comes into repeated contact with others of its kinds, so the species is always involved in the lives of other species. Most reptiles are carnivorous, and are therefore deeply involved in predator-prey exchanges in their habitats. As has been shown, this brings about various sorts of adaptations that help them to escape being eaten as well as to capture and eat other creatures. Little is known about the more subtle roles and relations of reptiles in their biological environments. They are hosts to various parasites. There are not many known cases of beneficial mutualism among reptiles, of useful partnerships between species, although it is likely that more knowledge of the natural history of the group will reveal many cases of casual partnerships and dependencies that are being overlooked now.
To be continued…
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