What is this EWD behaviour

[ronhalling]

So today for the first time since we moved to Port Macquarie 22 years ago we went to the Billabong Animal Park, i won't bore ya'll with a animal by animal narrative but at lunch time we were feeding bits of sausage to a medium size EWD when along came another 1 about double the size of the first, my first thought was oh oh here we go they are going to fight, but no, the big 1 approached the smaller 1 and started head bobbing and the smaller 1 started waving it's little foot, so i thought the big 1 must have been a male and the other a female and it was being subservient when all of a sudden they switched with the smaller 1 head bobbing and the larger 1 waving, After about 5 minutes of doing this they had a 10 minute stand off then the big 1 ran away and left the small 1 to finish it's lunch, had me scratching my head.
here is a pic of the EWD's and i have thrown in a pic of a couple of beautiful Coastal Taipans just for the hell of it. ..........................Ron

 

[Bushman]

My take on this is that they were both attracted to the prospect of a free feed and communicated in a reciprocally mutual and respectful manner and he's left the food for her (the smaller one) as she's gravid and possibly carrying his offspring.

 

[Rlpreston]

I'll start by saying I don't actually know the answer to your question, but...

I once saw a documentary about frogs of some kind (my memory fails me, sorry) and in it two males were vying for the same females attention. They approached each other each lifted and 'waved' their hands at the other to communicate and one of the two backed down. It was some kind of bizarre 'dance battle' type thing.

Perhaps what you saw was similar to this? A 'friendly' competition for the food.

 

[Jr.HerpKeeper]

I think the male was trying to or wanted to mate with the female (the smaller one) because my beardies do this but after a while the male just leaves my female alone.

Hope this helps

 

[GBWhite]

Had a look at your pic Ron and they both look like females from what I can make of it. Both lack the bright red bellies of males and there dorsal crests aren't large enough for a male. The heads are also smaller than your average males of both sized lizards.

I think you'll find the head bobbing and arm waving are actually a means to communicate threat displays. The smaller one obviously didn't feel threatened enough to give up it's feed of sausage and the larger decided a fight wasn't worth the trouble. Both look pretty healthy and nice and fat. Bet your not the only one to feed them...hahaha.

George.

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Also meant to mention Bushman that the reptile brain doesn't have the capacity to display or recognise emotion or empathy. Even if the larger one was a male and the female was gravid with his offspring he wouldn't care less and if it was a male and he wanted the feed he would have soon sent her on her way regardless.

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Just thought I'd let you know that it's not Physignathus lesueurii any more. It's now Intellagama lesueurii. Here's a link to a discussion/correspondence for anyone interested.http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2012/f/zt03390p067.pdf