Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions in teiid lizards.

SOAE from the last major lizard family not yet systematically investigated, the teiids, were collected from the genera Callopistes, Tupinambis and Cnemidophorus. Although their papillae show characteristics of the family Teiidae, the papillae differ both in their size and in the arrangement of uni- and bi-directional hair-cell areas. Among these three genera, Callopistes showed few (2 or 3) SOAE peaks, whereas the other two genera showed more (up to 6 per ear). In the absence of knowledge of the tonotopic maps, however, it was not possible to clearly relate the spectral patterns to the differences in papillar anatomy, suggesting that the determinants of these patterns may be more subtle than anticipated.