Most lizards cut off their tails when attacked by the enemy, and the cut tails will continue to twist violently to attract the attention of the enemy, divert the attention of the enemy, and make their escape successful. As a representative of the Japanese lizard, the tail color of its cubs is very conspicuous metallic blue, so that their self-cutting blue tails when escaping can attract the attention of enemies.
A green maned lizard with a severed tail
Looking at it is painfully broken tail
Self-cutting behavior is a very effective means of self-preservation. Wild lizards, grass lizards, geckos and other creatures have experienced self-cutting.
Geckos living on the surface also store nutrients like camels, which store nutrients on their bulging backs and geckos store fat on their tails. Once they lose their tails due to self-cutting behavior, their physical strength may be affected.
How to cut yourself?
When the lizard feels dangerous, it will contract the muscles of the tail, and the bones of the tail will be broken and cut from the middle, forming a "self-cutting" phenomenon. The muscles are then contracted and closed to maintain minimal bleeding. Self-amputation can occur anywhere in the tail. However, the place of the tail is not at the joint between the two tail vertebrae, but occurs in the special cartilage septum in the middle of the same vertebra. This special transverse septum is formed during the ossification of the caudal vertebrae and is broken by the strong contraction of the caudal muscles. Cells of the cartilage septum retain the characteristics of embryonic tissue throughout life and can constantly differentiate. Therefore, after the tail is disconnected, a new tail can be regenerated from there. There is no segmented tail vertebrae in the regenerated tail, but only a continuous bone ridge, and the arrangement and structure of the scales are different from the original tail.
How to regenerate?
After the tail falls, they secrete a growth hormone, and the cells regenerate quickly from the wound at the fracture, so the new tail begins to grow slowly. Small lizards can grow a new tail in about 2-3 months, but some take longer. The new tail will be different from the old tail in color, size, and shape. The new tail has all the functions of the old tail.
Some tails can regenerate even if they are injured but not completely broken, and new tails will grow from the wounds, so some lizards will have multiple tails with two ends and three segments.
Some snakes and lizards are very "miserable" because their tails account for 2/3 of the entire body, and it is a painful and prudent thing for snake lizards to break their tails.
Female lizards with severed tails will change their reproductive cycles because they will no longer have enough nutrients to lay eggs, and some will not even have a new tail until 2 years later to finally grow.
Can't be reborn?
Not all lizards can regenerate a tail after cutting themselves, and the crowned gecko in New California can no longer grow a new tail after the tail is cut off. In addition, the iguana belonging to the monitor lizard class, the Okinawa dragon lizard in Japan, and the iguana that represent the umbrella lizard basically do not cut their tails.
When the grass lizard is caught, it immediately cuts its tail. But if they are caught, let them calm down, and then slowly pinch the tail of the tail, and when they lift them up, they will hang in this way without cutting their tails. Therefore, even if the tail is caught, as long as they do not feel the danger, they will not cut themselves, because such an important tail can not be cut off at random.
If the lizards are unfortunate enough to have a tail, we must immediately put them in a safe and undisturbed shelter and clean the environment in time to reduce the possibility of bacterial infection. In addition, you can rub the drug, and do not bathe in water during the period when the wound is not healed.
After three days, if it returns to normal, some wounds will be gray-black and similar to thin molds, and after a week, there will be black fleshy circular protrusions. This is the newly grown tail hair, if the nutrition is not lacking, the tail will gradually grow out, the initial black flesh tail without salmon, about a month later, there will be fine squid growing out, but still gray-black, after a few months the tail is fully proportioned to grow out, the foot gradient becomes lighter, generally similar to the pattern on the body. The end of the tail is slightly less pointed like the original tail, and the end is rounder. It is estimated that this is also the reason why people often say that the regeneration after the tail is not as long as the original tail.
In the process of regrowing their tails, lizards need a lot of protein and fat, because for them those lost tails themselves contain a lot of nutrients.
According to the masters of grass lizards, pinching the tail is the safest way to move the grass mat. As the owner of the lizard, try to avoid the tragedy of the broken tail.