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    Cutaneous water collection by a moisture-harvesting lizard, the thorny devil (Moloch horridus)

    Access Status
    Open access via publisher
    Authors
    Comanns, P.
    Withers, Philip
    Esser, F.
    Baumgartner, W.
    Date
    2016
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Comanns, P. and Withers, P. and Esser, F. and Baumgartner, W. 2016. Cutaneous water collection by a moisture-harvesting lizard, the thorny devil (Moloch horridus). Journal of Experimental Biology. 219 (21): pp. 3473-3479.
    Source Title
    Journal of Experimental Biology
    DOI
    10.1242/jeb.148791
    ISSN
    0022-0949
    School
    Department of Environment and Agriculture
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/52884
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    © 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.Moisture-harvesting lizards, such as the Australian thorny devil, Moloch horridus, have the remarkable ability to inhabit arid regions. Special skin structures, comprising a micro-structured surface with capillary channels in between imbricate overlapping scales, enable the lizard to collect water by capillarity and transport it to the mouth for ingestion. The ecological role of this mechanism is the acquisition of water from various possible sources such as rainfall, puddles, dew, condensation on the skin, or absorption from moist sand, and we evaluate here the potential of these various sources for water uptake by M. horridus. The water volume required to fill the skin capillary system is 3.19% of body mass. Thorny devils standing in water can fill their capillary system and then drink from this water, at approximately 0.7 µl per jaw movement. Thorny devils standing on nearly saturated moist sand could only fill the capillary channels to 59% of their capacity, and did not drink. However, placing moist sand on skin replicas showed that the capillary channels could be filled from moist sand when assisted by gravity, suggesting that their field behaviour of shovelling moist sand onto the dorsal skin might fill the capillary channels and enable drinking. Condensation facilitated by thermal disequilibrium between a cool thorny devil and warm moist air provided skin capillary filling to approximately 0.22% of body weight, which was insufficient for drinking. Our results suggest that rain and moist sand seem to be ecologically likely water sources for M. horridus on a regular basis.

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