Because the genitalia of male reptiles are internal, it is not always easy to tell the sexes apart. It takes a real expert, for instance, to determine the sex of a snapping turtle or alligator. However, in most species there are certain external features by which it is possible to distinguish the sexes of fully mature individuals. The two most obvious ones are size and coloration. There is no set rule about which sex may be the larger, but in many species it is the male that is bigger than the female. Where difference in color patterns exist, it is generally the male which has the more vivid coloration, as is usual in birds; but here again the situation is sometimes reversed. In some species the sexual coloration is a sort of nuptial dress, assumed for breeding and later abandoned.

Internal fertilization is a cooperative process, and to bring it about the sexes must find each other, and must be physiologically prepared for mating. Most if not all reptiles show some sort of courtship behavior by which the sex of a potential partner is determined, the coyness of the female is overcome, and a readiness to mate is generated in both members of the pair. Courtship often duplicates or blends with the expressions of rivalry and home defense between males, and since this whole complex of innate behavior is a hereditary part of the make-up of a species, it affords an interesting field for study.

The courtship of a number of different snakes and lizards is a case in point. Although there are clear similarities in behavior patterns among the two groups, it has been found that most lizards recognize the female visually, while snakes depend on odor, trailing the female with their noses as well as with the tongue and Jacobson’s organ. Male lizards put on quite a display among themselves – showing colored throat fans, erecting crests, arching their necks and affecting various gaits – but how much of this actually carries over into courtship is not surely known. Some of it, however, is brought to bear by the male on a prospective partner. When the female is thoroughly recognized as a female and her reticence overcome, the male lizard (like the males of some snakes) seizes her with his jaw, bends the base of his tail downward to maneuver the cloacal openings into contact, and insertion of one of the hemipenes is affected.

Turtles both aquatic terrapins and land tortoises, carry out varyingly elaborate courtships which may include butting and nipping of the female by the male, or his swimming backward in front of her, fluttering his claws beside her face, or stroking her cheeks with his elongate fingernails. Among some species of pond turtles and among sea turtles, courtship is accompanied by competitive behavior among males.

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The idea of a poisonous animal evolving a warning device that will work only if a potential enemy also evolves the sense to react to the warning is hard for some people to accept. I do not know why this should be so. Besides logic, a great store of anecdotal evidence supports its reality. Nearly any mature Florida bird dog, for instance, reacts instantly to the sound of a rattlesnake. While it is hard to be sure what a dog has learned from previous experience or from other dogs, it can in most cases I know about be confidently said that the learning  process did not involve being bitten by a rattlesnake. A pointer I used to hunt with in central Florida, though it had never been bitten by a poisonous snake in its life, showed unmistakable evidence of associating the rattle with a particularly odious situation. In its quartering for quail, if you saw it suddenly jump into the air and you went to the spot to see what had scared it, one of two things was most often there – a coiled diamondback, or a bush of a certain species of Crotalaria, the dry pods of which rattle when disturbed, almost like a rattler’s alarm. Only one of the several species of Crotalaria sounds authentically like a snake, and only that species used to make my dog jump. But the effect of a collision with that was electric, and for all the years of its life the dog rose like a bird when it stirred the fearful noise from a diamondback or from the bush that I think sounded the same to the dog.

That is of course not a scientific observation. It involves a subjective judgment on my part, and the behavior of only one dog. And it in  any case leaves unanswered the question whether the reaction is innate in canines or is learned by associating the sound of the rattle with the bites or aggressive behavior of snakes in general – or is learned from other dogs. That dogs are or Old World, and rattlesnakes of American origin, makes it seem unlikely that the pointer was born genetically able to associate the sound with the snake. On the other hand, the buzzing of rattlesnakes is really just an elaboration of a tendency of many kinds of snakes to vibrate the tail when approached by a potential enemy. The vibration is often soundless, but in dry leaves it makes a little rattling or humming noise. Possibly dog ancestors evolved the capacity to associate such a sound with ill-tempered or dangerous snakes. But the important point is that the rattle of the rattlesnakes makes little sense unless it can be thought of as an agent of advantage to the bearer. And the advantage in not being stepped on by a bison or chopped up by the teeth of a wolf seems pretty clear. That the bison and wolf might go away poisoned and die would be little comfort to the snake. Its profit would come from preventing the encounter from happening.

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Iguanas cannot change their color like chameleons, but coloration and pattern will become more vivid under natural sunlight or broad-spectrum fluorescent light.
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