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Lizard Pushups: Gathering more data

As you spend time in your backyard watching lizards, you will become more and more attuned to detecting their motion and observing their movements. After a few days, it becomes clear to you that a lizard usually performs pushups when there is another lizard in the immediate area. Again, mouse over to trigger animation. (Netscape 4.x users may need to "reload" the page, or click on the image to run the animation again.)

animation of lizard doing pushups while the other lizard watches

If your observation is correct, it suggests that the pushups are intended to be seen by the other lizard - that is, pushups are a form of communication between lizards.

Based on this information, how will you modify your original question, "why do lizards do pushups?"

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