The Correlates of Foraging Mode in a Community of Brazilian Lizards

Three measures of foraging intensity-speed, frequency of movement, and area utilized-were used to rank four sympatric lizards on a scale of intensity of foraging. Species were ranked as follows: Ameiva ameiva > Cnemidophorus lemniscatus > Kentropyx striatus > Anolis auratus. The first three species are teiid lizards and generally are regarded as wide-foraging. Four characteristics (activity temperatures, relative clutch mass, amount of termites in the diet, and amount of active insects in the diet) that have been found to differentiate wide-foraging lizards from sit-and-wait lizards in previous studies differed among the teiids in a manner predictable from the intensity of their foraging. Three other characteristics (relative tail length, mean size of active prey, and food intake) did not correlate with intensity of foraging of the teiids. We suggest that quantification of foraging mode allows more detailed analysis of the correlates of foraging by allowing intra- as well as interfamilial comparisons.