Abstract Although chemical interactions play an essential role in lizard social behavior, the chemical composition of the femoral gland secretions that many lizards use for communication is known for only a few species, mainly European Lacertids. The tegu lizard, Salvator merianae, is the only species of the Teiidae family for which there is available information on lipids in femoral secretions, but only for captive bred males from Argentina. Here, based on mass spectra obtained by GC-MS, we found 69 lipophilic compounds in femoral gland secretions of wild males S. merianae from Brazil, including cholesterol and high amounts of saturated fatty acids (mainly hexadecanoic and octadecanoic). We found contrasting differences between wild and captive-bred males, which lack cholesterol but present high amount of 9,12-octadecadienoic acid. These within-species differences between wild and captive lizards strongly suggest the important influence of different diets on the chemical composition of the femoral gland secretion and suggest caution when interpreting results from captive animals, even in the same species.

中文翻译：

---

与圈养雄性相比，野生雄性 tegu 蜥蜴 Salvator merianae（Squamata，Teiidae）股腺分泌物中脂质的化学特征

摘要 虽然化学相互作用在蜥蜴的社会行为中起着至关重要的作用，但许多蜥蜴用于交流的股腺分泌物的化学成分仅在少数物种中已知，主要是欧洲蝎虎座。tegu 蜥蜴 Salvator merianae 是 Teiidae 科中唯一有关于股骨分泌物脂质信息的物种，但仅限于阿根廷人工繁殖的雄性。在这里，基于 GC-MS 获得的质谱图，我们在来自巴西的野生雄性 S. merianae 的股腺分泌物中发现了 69 种亲脂性化合物，包括胆固醇和大量饱和脂肪酸（主要是十六烷酸和十八烷酸）。我们发现野生和圈养雄性之间存在对比差异，它们缺乏胆固醇但存在大量 9,12-十八碳二烯酸。