Bearded dragons become smarter at cool temperatures – via Herp Digest

DeathRattleSports.com

November 24, 2017 By Klopa Robin

Does the cold make dragons smarter? A new study suggests it does. 

When researchers put bearded dragons eggs in incubated, colder environments, they found that they were better at solving cognitive tasks as adults than than those incubated at warmer temperatures. 

Specifically, bearded dragons incubated at colder temperatures picked up new skills faster than their counterparts incubated at hotter temperatures. 

The findings could provide new insights into how animals may react and adapt to human-induced climate change.

The study, published in the journal Open Science, involved testing the social learning abilities of bearded dragons which had been incubated in either an average of 30°C (86°F) or 27°C (80.6°F). 

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To investigate how well they would learn from other lizards, researchers at the University of Lincoln, UK, had the bearded dragons watch a video of an unfamiliar female opening a sliding door to receive food behind the door. 

After watching the video, those lizards went through the same test and had five minutes to open the door themselves and access the food reward. 

The study revealed that over the course of ten experimental trials, the group from the colder incubation environment completed the task significantly more quickly than those from hotter incubators. 

All of the animals were over a year old at the time of the experiments, suggesting that environmental temperature change  is likely to have profound and long-lasting impacts on animal behavior.   

‘Environmental change is one of the key issues affecting habitats worldwide, creating challenges for animals living there,’ said Dr Anna Wilkinson, a researcher at the University of Lincoln’s School of Life Sciences and the lead author of the study. 

‘One of the first responses an animal can make to a changing environment is changing its behavior. 

‘Cognitive abilities are likely to be critical to how they adapt because they influence how an animal perceives, stores and uses information from the surrounding environment.’

Dr Wilkinson says that the research shows that egg incubation environment has an impact on social learning in adult bearded dragons, since the cold-incubated animals performed the task significantly faster than those that were incubated at a warmer temperature. 

A new study by researchers at the University of Lincoln, UK, involved testing the social learning abilities of bearded dragons which had been incubated in either an average of 30°C (86°F) or 27°C (80.6°F).

Thirteen bearded dragon eggs were randomly assigned to two incubation conditions – 7 to the hot group and 6 to the cold groups.  

The eggs were incubated in multiple plastic boxes, and once hatched, the animals were housed in similar environments.

The animals were at least one-year old at the time of testing for the experiments. 

The experiment involved showing the bearded dragons a video of an unfamiliar female opening a sliding door to receive food behind the door.

After watching the video, those lizards went through the same test and had five minutes to open the door themselves and access the food reward.

‘One intriguing idea suggests that incubation environment may “select” for traits that are adaptive to the specific environment into which the animal being born – for example, a cooler environment may produce animals that are better adapted to survival in that temperature profile and vice versa,’ says Dr Wilkinson. 

Harry Siviter, from Royal Holloway, University of London, who was part of the research team, said: ‘This flexibly of cognitive ability could aid reptiles in adapting to new changing environments and could offer a potential buffer in the face of human-induced environmental change.’

‘However, if conditions change too rapidly then reptiles might struggle to adapt quickly enough to their changing environments, which could negativity influence their survival.’