Male lizards mate with females

This is the first time that the popular black and white lizard in South America mating with the corpse of the female is recorded, the behavior is often seen only in frogs.

A male black and white lizard is mating with the female dead in Brazil.(Photo: National Geographic)

"It is strange," recalled Ivan Sazima, a zoologist at the University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, when he saw a male lizard mate with their dead bodies in September 2013.

Sazima said, this behavior is only common in frogs, or other lizards. This is the first time he has encountered in lizard Salvator Merianae - also known as black and white lizard, a popular species in South America.

Sazima observed that the male licked his tongue with his children - popular flirting behavior, then tried to mate with the female for about 5 minutes. After that, a group of geese appeared, causing turmoil that the male fled.

The following afternoon, Sazima returned to the carcass's body. The body starts to swell and rot. However, this sniffy smell does not affect another male lizard, trying to mate with the female carcasses.

This study was published in January on Herpetology Notes. Accordingly, for nearly an hour, the males show flirtation by lying on their children and biting its head, performing mating behavior, and then leaving.

Explaining this behavior, Sazima argued that the male might have simply been deceived and thought that the children were alive. In this case, though dead, the female has a body temperature close to the ambient temperature. In addition, the pheromone or scent still emanates on the female body, probably attracting the male to find it.