Seasonal water loss of the lizard Lophognathus temporalis in the wet-dry tropics of northern Australia

Evaporative water loss (EWL) occurs principally across the skin (cutaneous water loss, CWL) of terrestrial reptiles (Shoemaker and Nagy, 1977;Mautz, 1982), but EWL also occurs across respiratory passages (respiratory water loss) and the eyes (ocular water loss) (Mautz, 1982).Over 70% of EWL in agamid lizards is from CWL (Eynan and Dmi 'el, 1993).The factors determining the rate of CWL are skin resistance (Davis et al., 1980) and vapour density difference between the epidermis and the surrounding atmosphere (Zucker, 1980).Vapour density difference increases with increasing environmental temperature and wind speed and decreasing humidity and size of the animal (Davis et al., 1980).Respiratory water loss increases with aridity of habitat in agamid lizards (Leclaire, 1978).Ocular water loss may be a significant component of water loss where no significant barrier, such as