Red tegu Q

MintyHippo · Member Joined: Aug 13, 2005 Posts: 14

Why do RedTegus develop such big cheeks?

tupinambis · Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:14 am Post subject:

Those enlarged cheeks or jowls are evident in the males of T. rufescens, T. merianae and T. duseni, and are basically used by the males in combat as a sort of shield. They appear so large because they actually have skeletal elements arrising from the hyoid apparatus. When the males fight, they typically try to lock onto an area of their opponent's body and then rip it away by doing an "alligator roll". Ideally (to the aggressive combatant) they go for either a limb or the guts, but another common area is the cheeks, which a defender would prefer as it is less vitally important than any other part of the body (other than the tail). If the two males face directly towards each other, these cheeks flare out a bit and help block access to other parts of the body. In the wild, you will see a lot of males have combat scars on the cheeks.

MintyHippo · Member Joined: Aug 13, 2005 Posts: 14

Thanks alot.