Do lizards have object permanence?

It’s been argued that animals themselves don’t imagine a thing even has existence until it moves. This of course is demonstrated frequently by the way a prey creature freezes when caught in the sight of a predator. I think with mammals there may be a case for object permanence such as wolves returning to a kill or a dog going to get help but with the reptiles it’s all about movement. Now snakes have been shown to return to a
communal den year after year but this is probably more a homing instinct

In my experience, no, not at all.

Considering that crows don’t have it (and reptiles now include them) it is even more unlikely that any reptiles have it.

I would say, from personal experience, that most of the reptiles that I’ve worked with aren’t quite that advanced. I would consider following a stationary object (because the den doesn’t move) to be different, and as was said before, likely homing. And not only do many snakes return to communal hibernation dens, but rattlesnakes cannot be relocated because they return to where they were hatched to have their young, which they bear live and protect.

I’ve also watched a lizard stand on a lettuce leaf and continue to try and eat it for about five minutes before he gave up (never stepping off the leaf).

According to How homo became sapiens: on the evolution of thinking
By Peter Gärdenfors reptiles do not demonstrate object permanence.

They do when you back over one of them when leaving for work. They become quite “permanent” objects until someone gets a shovel and scrapes them off.

(We have a Gekko problem – the little blighters are everywhere.)

@will: I have a fair bit of experience with iguanas and I can think of two examples indicating that they understand at least object permanence for non-moving objects, i.e. people and places.

one iguana apparently set out to deliberately tease a girl who seemed afraid of him/her. (back in those days I couldn’t tell male and female iguanas apart.) at least once, after I scooped the iguana up, s/he went on back to frighten that girl. (whether or not the iguana meant to tease her on purpose doesn’t matter for the sake of the story.)

more recently, I took another iguana out for a walk. I let her wander around while I waited under a tree for some shade. she came back of her volition, said hello and wandered off again. she clearly knew that she came back to me because she knew where to find me. I figure that she either wanted to tease me or wanted to reassure herself that I had not gone away.

the same iguana also had a fascination with a metal grate and, after a while, she would head for it as soon as I took her a walk. (why that grate, I don’t know.) that may or may not require object permanence.

she also learned to not panic so much when she fell into the (empty) bathtub, which she would do constantly. she got to realize that, as before, I would drop a bath towel for her so that she could climb up it. though that probably does have more to do with memory rather than reasoning.

Yes, monitor lizards do. They are the smartest lizards and are top predators in their environments. They wouldn’t be very good predators if they simply lost interest in an object that dipped out of sight.

likewise, lizard species which face predation (meaning, I think, most of them) have good reason to develop skills to evade their predators.

@Ria777
Avoiding a predator does not imply a capacity for object permanence. It’s just instinctual for an animal to escape from something trying to eat it.

@SeventhSense: yep. still, under those circumstances, object permanence doesn’t hurt.

@Ria777
Put a lizard in another yard and he might as well be in another country.

@SeventhSense: I don’t understand what you mean.