Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Australia.
PLoS One. 2011 May 11;6(5):e19041. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019041.
Constructing a home to protect offspring while they mature is common in many vertebrate groups, but has not previously been reported in lizards. Here we provide the first example of a lizard that constructs a long-term home for family members, and a rare case of lizards behaving cooperatively. The great desert skink, Liopholis kintorei from Central Australia, constructs an elaborate multi-tunnelled burrow that can be continuously occupied for up to 7 years. Multiple generations participate in construction and maintenance of burrows. Parental assignments based on DNA analysis show that immature individuals within the same burrow were mostly full siblings, even when several age cohorts were present. Parents were always captured at burrows containing their offspring, and females were only detected breeding with the same male both within- and across seasons. Consequently, the individual investments made to construct or maintain a burrow system benefit their own offspring, or siblings, over several breeding seasons.
在许多脊椎动物群体中，为后代建造一个保护它们成熟的家是很常见的，但在蜥蜴中尚未有报道。在这里，我们提供了蜥蜴为家庭成员建造长期住所的第一个例子，也是蜥蜴合作行为的罕见案例。来自澳大利亚中部的大沙漠石龙子，建造了一个精心设计的多隧道洞穴，可以连续居住长达 7 年。多个世代参与洞穴的建造和维护。基于 DNA 分析的父母分配表明，同一洞穴内的未成年个体大多是全同胞，即使有几个年龄组同时存在。在包含其后代的洞穴中总能捕获到父母，并且在同一季节内和跨季节时，雌性蜥蜴只与同一雄性蜥蜴交配繁殖。因此，建造或维护一个洞穴系统的个体投资，在多个繁殖季节中使它们自己的后代或兄弟姐妹受益。
