Reptiles and emotions!
🦎 For decades, reptiles have been characterized as cold, unfeeling and even primitive creatures. However, scientists confirm that reptiles are not devoid of emotions - they are misunderstood. Extensive research has shown that reptiles experience a wide range of emotions and are highly socially complex animals.
👀 Anxiety, stress, excitement, fear, frustration, pain and suffering are all emotions that humans can feel on a daily basis, and scientists have repeatedly found that reptiles experience these things as well, according to a 2019 literature review published in the journal Animals.
👩🔬 A 2019 review, which analyzed a cross-section of scientific literature on reptile sensing conducted between 1999 and 2018, found 37 studies that showed evidence of reptiles' ability to feel.
🐢 One of these studies, for example, showed that handling lizards caused an increase in heart rate, indicating an emotional response. Another showed that red-eared turtles exhibited anxiety-like behavior when placed in a new environment.
🦕 In The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles, a book on reptile socialization published in 2021, researchers detail how reptiles can exhibit large differences in social behavior between different species. Although reptiles may not be outwardly expressive in the same way as humans or other mammals, they are in fact highly social animals and have developed complex rituals of parental care, courtship and nesting.
Such information helps to educate and understand the behavior of these animals based on the references cited below.
More interesting facts from the world of herpetology on my new website:
👉 If you want more information, I encourage you to read the references:
Cabanac A, Cabanac M. 2000. Heart rate response to gentle handling of frog and lizard. Behav Processes 52(2-3):89-95.
David Hain et al. 2022. Molecular diversity and evolution of neuron types in the amniote brain. Science 377: eabp8202
Doody J, Dinets V and Burghardt G. 2021. The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Font E. 2024. Reptiles: Misunderstood, maligned and mistreated. www.ecologicalcitizen.net
Lambert H, Carder G, D'Cruze N. 2019. Given the Cold Shoulder: A Review of the Scientific Literature for Evidence of Reptile Sentience. Animals (Basel) 9(10):821.
Sophie A. Moszuti, Anna Wilkinson, Oliver H.P. Burman. 2017. Response to novelty as an indicator of reptile welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 193: 98-103.
Naturalist, traveler, French-Polish herpetologist, interested in biodiversity and the conservation of herpetofauna. I have always been passionate about observing and studying amphibians and reptiles, especially different species of lizards in many countries. This has allowed me to gain experience in scientific research by collaborating with other specialists, attending numerous conferences and writing papers on herpetofauna. I participate in numerous monitoring and conservation programmes. Member of the IUCN SSC Monitor Lizard Specialist Group. Addicted to Natural History.
Education and the sharing of knowledge is the key to progress and understanding.
"Learning from the past to understand the present and prepare the future."
Please sign in or register for FREE
If you are a registered user on WildHub, please sign in
Thank you so much for sharing this, Przemyslaw! Reptiles' emotional capacity is a much needed research topic and I am glad to see your post! Lambert et al. (2019) is really insightful and hope more research on the topic will help debunk old theories that considered reptiles emotionless and "cold". Over the years, these misconceptions have truly lead to a lack awareness for reptiles' needs in captivity and in the wild and I think there is a growing need for reptile conservation!