The fighting dance

When two men have a fistfight in the movies, they often circle each other slowly, staring intently and talking a little trash before striking a blow. I thought it was just an interesting camera angle, but now I’ve seen the same thing a couple of times in the wild.

Two male lava lizards met on a rock on San Cristobal near Playa Mann one morning. They often seek a high perch from which to display for potential mates. Not surprisingly, the rock wasn’t big enough for two of them. They squared off and began circling. When one advanced, the other moved in the opposite direction, head to tail, round and round. Everyone once in a while, one would lunge at the other, they’d tussle, then resume their walking standoff.

A few days later, while I was snorkeling at Tijeretas, I watched two Mexican Hogfish engage in a similar dance – circling slowly, darting at each other, and then resuming their tango.

I decided there must be an advantage to this pas de deux. Perhaps it gives the pair an opportunity to size each other up without yielding any positional advantage. The lava lizards occasionally paused to bob and flare out their throats, the lizard equivalent of talking trash, I suppose. Physical contact when it came was fairly brief.

Both lizards appeared to have had scrapes before, with the pattern on their tails demarking where a competitor or predator had severed it. In the end the smaller lizard retreated and the other claimed the high ground. The Mexican Hogfish apparently called it a draw, each swimming off to fight another day.