Adult male collared lizards, Crotaphytus collaris, increase aggression towards displaced neighbours

Differential responses to neighbours and strangers (the dear enemy phenomenon) and individual recognition presumably evolve to reduce costs of territorial defence. Territorial residents have been found to demonstrate reduced aggression towards neighbours wherever they are encountered along that resident's territory boundary except for when the neighbour is displaced to the boundary opposite the shared boundary. In this new location, the displaced neighbour represents a greater threat to the resident's territory ownership, and should be treated as equally aggressive as a stranger. Finding increased aggression towards displaced neighbours has been interpreted as individual recognition, but these results do not provide sufficient evidence to rule out the possibility that the resident sees the neighbour out of its normal context as just another stranger. We tested the hypothesis that territorial collard lizards can individually recognize neighbours and will increase aggression towards them as the threat to territorial ownership increases. Resident males treated neighbours that had been moved to the opposite boundary as equally aggressive as strangers. However, residents responded more aggressively towards strangers than towards neighbours on natural territories (the dear enemy phenomenon) and also in neutral arena encounters. Our results suggest that resident male collared lizards are able to recognize individuals regardless of context and respond to them according to the threat that they pose. Copyright 2003 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.