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Related Concept Videos

Parental Care00:55

Parental Care

Many animals exhibit parental care behavior, including feeding, grooming, and protecting young offspring. Parental care is universal in mammals and birds, which often have young that are born relatively helpless. Several species of insects and fish, as well as some amphibians, also care for their young.
Mate Choice01:20

Mate Choice

Mate choice—the decision about whom to mate with—is a type of natural selection, since animals must reproduce to pass down their genes. Mate choice is also called intersexual selection because the behavior occurs between the sexes.
Imprinting01:22

Imprinting

Behavioral imprinting is observed in some newborn animals and occurs when they develop strong and specific attachments to another animal (usually a parent) following brief, early-life exposures. Offspring imprint onto parents within a brief period after birth or hatching; this time window is called the critical period. Once imprinting occurs, the bond established between the parents and their offspring is usually long-lasting.
Understanding Species and Reproductive Barriers01:17

Understanding Species and Reproductive Barriers

A species is a group of organisms that interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Typically, individuals of the same species appear similar and share common characteristics due to their highly similar genomes. However, not all organisms that look alike are members of the same species. Various mechanisms keep most species discrete. While some mechanisms prevent reproductive behavior and fertilization (pre-zygotic isolation), others prevent the production of fertile offspring after mating has...
Migration00:53

Migration

Migration is long-range, seasonal movement from one region or habitat to another. This common strategy, carried out by many different organisms around the world, is an adaptive response that typically corresponds to changes in an organism’s environment, like resource availability or climate. Migrations can involve huge groups of thousands of animals as well as single individuals traveling alone and can range from thousands of kilometers to just a few hundred meters.
Background and Environment Affect Phenotype02:27

Background and Environment Affect Phenotype

Although the genetic makeup of an organism plays a major role in determining the phenotype, there are also several environmental factors, such as temperature, oxygen availability, presence of mutagens, that can alter an organism’s phenotype.
An example of how genetic background affects phenotype can be seen in horses. The Extension gene in horses is responsible for their coat color. A wild-type gene (EE) produces black pigment in the coat, while a mutant gene (ee) produces red pigment. A...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Probing the Limits of Egg Recognition Using Egg Rejection Experiments Along Phenotypic Gradients
07:34

Probing the Limits of Egg Recognition Using Egg Rejection Experiments Along Phenotypic Gradients

Published on: August 22, 2018

Does maternal care evolve through egg recognition or directed territoriality?

W-S Huang1, D A Pike

  • 1Department of Zoology, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan. wshuang@mail.nmns.edu.tw

Journal of Evolutionary Biology
|June 9, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Maternal care in egg-laying vertebrates can evolve through territoriality, not egg recognition. Studies on long-tailed skinks show nest guarding is linked to location, not specific eggs, offering insights into parental care origins.

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Herpetology

Background:

  • The evolution of maternal care in terrestrial vertebrates is debated, with two main hypotheses: egg recognition or territorial behavior.
  • Intraspecific variation in parental care is rare, making it difficult to study its evolutionary origins.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the proximate mechanisms driving the recent evolution of maternal care in a population of long-tailed skinks (Eutropis longicaudata).
  • To test whether maternal care in this species is based on egg recognition or a form of territoriality.

Main Methods:

  • Studied a population of long-tailed skinks on Orchid Island, Taiwan, where females exhibit maternal care, contrasting with other populations lacking it.
  • Conducted experiments involving nest site manipulation and egg substitution to assess female guarding behavior.
  • Observed behavior of gravid females to determine if care evolves before or after egg-laying.

Main Results:

  • Nest-guarding females defended their original nest site regardless of egg presence or identity, even with conspecific eggs.
  • Guarding behavior was specific to the nest location and not the eggs themselves.
  • Females exhibited guarding behavior prior to egg-laying, while gravid.

Conclusions:

  • The findings support the territoriality hypothesis, suggesting maternal care in long-tailed skinks is a form of territorial behavior directed at predators, not based on egg recognition.
  • This study provides evidence for nest guarding as a primitive form of parental care and illuminates a potential pathway for its evolution in terrestrial vertebrates.