QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s):
Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents

First published online June 13, 2008
Journal of Experimental Biology 211, 2071-2078 (2008)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2008
doi: 10.1242/jeb.018390

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Schaerlaeken, V. Articles by Meyers, J. J. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Schaerlaeken, V. Articles by Meyers, J. J.

Modulation, individual variation and the role of lingual sensory afferents in the control of prey transport in the lizard Pogona vitticeps

Vicky Schaerlaeken^1,*, Anthony Herrel^1,2 and J. J. Meyers³

¹ Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerpen, Belgium
² Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
³ Department of Biology and Organismic Evolutionary Biology Program, 221 Morrill Science Center, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: vicky.schaerlaeken{at}ua.ac.be)

Accepted 9 April 2008

Most organisms feed on a variety of food items that may differ dramatically in their physical and behavioural characteristics (e.g. mobility, mass, texture, etc.). Thus the ability to modulate prey transport behaviour in accordance with the characteristics of the food appears crucial. Consequently, prey reduction and transport movements must be adjusted to the natural variation in material properties of the food, between and within feeding sequences and transport cycles. Here we describe an investigation of (1) the ability of the agamid lizard Pogona vitticeps to modulate prey transport kinematics when feeding on a range of food items differing in their physical characteristics and (2) the role of sensory feedback in controlling jaw and tongue movements by bilateral transection of the lingual trigeminal sensory afferents. Our findings demonstrate that P. vitticeps modulates the kinematics of its feeding behaviour in response to the mechanical demands imposed by different food types. In addition, transection of the trigeminal sensory afferents has an effect on the movements of jaws and tongue during transport, and increases the duration of transport cycles needed to process a given food type. However, after transection, transport cycles were still different for different food types suggesting that other sources of sensory information are also used to modulate prey transport in the lizard P. vitticeps.