Vol. 9 No. (2): 51 - 64 (2018): DIETARY SELECTION AND SOME CURIOUS DIET-RELATED HABITS IN Agama agama, AGAMIDAE (LINNAEUS, 1758) IN THE SAVANNAH BELT OF NIGERIA

In addition to providing data of prey items, field surveillance of foraging activities in
lizards offers information on behavioural responses to changing habitat; food resource
conditions, such as, prey density; and the manner the prey is captured. The present
work, conducted near suburban settlements and towns in the Savannah belt of Nigeria,
West Africa, sought to use a natural history approach, with a mix of analytical methods
in order to enhance the characterization of the dietary ecology of A. agama through
direct field surveillance of foraging habits. This work reports, possibly for the first time,
some age-sex differences in diet-related behaviour of A. agama. Surveillance was made
four times in each of four sites, over four seasons, during June, 2015 to May, 2017. Five
transects of 100 meters each, spaced at 20-meter intervals were established in each of
the four sites. On every surveillance occasion, bouts of 30-minute walks were made on
each transect, pausing for longer periods whenever needed. Observations were
completed mainly with unaided eye, except for infrequent use of binoculars. Five
dietary items, namely dipterans, hymenopterans, isopterans, fungus, and orthopterans
had the highest frequency of selection ranks, in the order listed. The young & juvenile
lizards (of both sexes) displayed a rather peculiar manner of catching their dipteran
prey, described here as The Agama Predatory ‘Dance’ Significantly greater proportion
of young & juvenile lizards deployed this technique more than the adults (Fisher's
exact test, P = 0.002; Test for difference = 0 (vs not = 0); Z = -3.46; P-Value = 0.001).
Other diet-related observations noted included cannibalism and pest tendencies.
Perhaps, degraded habitat and poor food resource conditions were related to certain
bizarre dietary behaviours seen in A. agama.