吐鲁番沙虎对不同食物化合物的反应

Response of Teratoscincus roborowskii to Major Food-chemical Categories

化学感受在蜥蜴的生态和行为中发挥了重要作用,而中国特有且罕见的食果性壁虎——吐鲁番沙虎Teratoscincus roborowskii是否具有食物的化学识别能力尚不清楚。采用棉签法研究吐鲁番沙虎对不同食物化合物的反应,以饱和蔗糖溶液作为碳水化合物,纯猪肉脂肪作为脂类的复杂混合物,大豆蛋白粉溶液作为蛋白质,蒸馏水作为对照。用棉签分别蘸这些刺激物,进行60 s弹舌试验。用弹舌速率(TFR)和弹舌攻击得分[TFAS(R)]作为响应食物化合物的指标,以探讨吐鲁番沙虎探测不同类型食物的化学识别模式。结果表明,吐鲁番沙虎对不同食物化合物的TFR和TFAS(R)差异有统计学意义;对蒸馏水、饱和蔗糖溶液的TFR极显著或显著大于脂肪;对脂肪的TFAS(R)极显著大于蒸馏水、饱和蔗糖溶液。这些结果也提示,吐鲁番沙虎能使用犁鼻器检测和识别不同食物化合物。

Chemical senses play a critical role in the ecology and behavior of lizards.However,evidence of prey chemical discrimination in the Turpan wonder gecko,Teratoscincus roborowskii,a rare frugivorous gecko endemic to China,is not clear.In this study,the lingual responses of this gecko to single representatives of 3 major categories of food chemicals were investigated.Saturated sugar solution was used as a carbohydrate,pure pork fat as a lipids mixture and soy protein powder solution as a protein.In addition,distilled water was used as control.All stimuli were presented on cotton swabs in 60-sec tongue-flicks trials.Tongue-flicks rate（TFR） and tongue-flicks attack scores [TFAS（R） ] were used to determine the chemical identification modes on different stimuli.Our results showed that the T.roborowskii would respond to all 3 stimuli.The TFR value in reponse to the distilled water and the saturated sugar solution were extremely significantly or significantly greater than that to lipids,while the TFAS（R） in response to lipids was extremely significantly higher than that to distilled water and saturated sugar solution.These findings indicated that T.roborowskii is capable of using vomeronasal organ to detect and identify several types of food chemicals.