Social display in the Curaçao Whiptail (Cnemidophorus murinus Laurenti)

Three teiid species (Squamata: Teiidae) are endemic to the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) of the former Netherlands Antilles: the Aruba Whiptail (Cnemidophorus arubensis) of Aruba, the Bonaire Whiptail (C. ruthveni) of Bonaire and Klein-Bonaire, and the Curaçao Whiptail (C. murinus) of Curaçao and Klein-Curaçao. Before now, social displays have been described only for one of these three species: C. ruthveni (Baird et al. 2003). All three species engage in an arm-waving display that involves forelimb circumduction (Baird et al. 2003; van Buurt 2005; van Buurt 2011), which conveys social signals to conspecifics in some iguanian and lacertid lizard species (Carpenter et al. 1970; Verbeek 1972; Mitchell 1973). However, this behavior in the ABC island species of Cnemidophorus has not been shown to have a social function (Baird et al. 2003). Instead, experimental evidence demonstrates that in C. ruthveni it functions as a pursuit deterrent display that is performed in response to approaching humans, whom the lizard may view as potential predators (Cooper et al. 2004), although there are not yet any published reports of C. ruthveni performing the display in response to the approach of a non-human predator. My observations and those of others (van Buurt 2011) also confirm that in C. arubensis the display is performed in response to approaching humans.