Control of Thermal Conductance Is Insignificant to Thermoregulation in Small Reptiles

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Abstract
Five small species of Australian scincid lizard (<20 g) heated more slowly than they cooled when exposed to step-function changes in ambient temperature. This is the reverse of the pattern typical of larger reptiles. Interestingly, this pattern was predicted by extrapolation from an earlier study that described the relationship between thermal time constant and body mass in reptiles. The reverse pattern is unlikely to represent an adaptive response, so physiological control over thermal conductance is apparently insignificant or lacking in small skinks, and perhaps other small reptiles also, in which thermoregulation must depend primarily on behavioral strategies. As most reptiles weigh <20 g, the importance of regulatory changes in thermal conductance as a mechanism for thermoregulation may have been overrated by some authors as a generalization applicable to the reptilia as a whole.