Reproductive activities in the Horny-scaled Agama Trapelus ruderatus (Olivier, 1804) of eastern regions of Lorestan Province, Iran

Honry-scaled Agama (Trapelus ruderatus) is widely distributed throughout northwest to southeast of Iran. In the present research, we studied its sexual size dimorphism along with reproductive activities of some populations. To perform these tasks 21 specimens of this taxon (including 11 females and 10 males) were collected during two seasons of spring and summer from their natural habitat in Dorood, Aligodars and Azna towns. Later their sexuality was determined and then to assess the sexual dimorphism 15 metric and meristic characters were measured. The provided data were then analyzed using SPSS 19 and statistical tests. Afterwards some specimens were dissected and gonads used for anatomical and histological examinations. The results of univariate analysis showed that there were three metric characters Snout-vent length, Gular fold to vent length and Forelimb-hindlimb length that can be used for discrimination of sexual differences as the values of these character were larger in female than males. Moreover, the anatomical and histological findings demonstrated that in spring the males have large testes while an active spermatogenesis process is happening in the thick epithelium of seminiferous tubules. On the contrary, the testes were smaller in summer and the seminiferous epithelium is thin with a few sperms in the lumens of the tubules. Similarly, in females large ovaries with mature follicles were observed in spring but in summer ovaries were small with many arthritic follicles. Overall, the results showed that in this taxon, females have a lager trunk for spacing the eggs, also in both sexes the maximum gametogenesis activity occurs in spring.