Animal behaviour can affect the outcome of conservation translocations. It is important to understand the behaviour of the species being considered for translocation and how its behaviour varies over life stages. There may be uncertainty about what life stages are best as founders for release back into wild populations. A technique called head-starting whereby juvenile life stages are raised in captivity and then released is one potential pre-release strategy. However, juveniles of many species have a dispersive role in the life cycle, potentially raising difficulties for establishing new populations due to dispersal from the intended habitat following release. For this study, we compared aspects of the behaviour of captive adult and neonate pygmy bluetongue lizards (Tiliqua adelaidensis)an endangered species for which translocation is likely to be an important management strategyto determine if neonate behavioural characteristics are appropriate for their translocation. We filmed adult and neonate pygmy bluetongue lizards and compared their behaviour. We also filmed adults over an activity season to compare seasonal behaviour. Behavioural parameters measured included basking time, burrow exits, burrows occupied and walking the perimeter wall. Neonates basked significantly more than adults in summer and autumn. Neonates are likely to be basking more than adults because they are in a stage of rapid growth and need to gain body mass before the winter inactivity period. Neonates exited burrows more often than adults and used a greater number of burrows. These results indicate neonate lizards are actively exploring their habitat. Neonates are unlikely to be as suitable for translocation as they are actively moving about and more likely to be predated upon or disperse from the translocation site. Our finding can be applied to other species that have active juvenile life stages and are at particular risk of predation due to their small size.

Chemical cues can alert prey to the presence of predators before the predator is within visual proximity. Recognition of a predator's scent is therefore an important component of predator awareness. We presented predator and control scents to wild, wild-born captive, and predator-naive captive-born pygmy bluetongue lizards to determine (1) whether lizards respond to reptile chemical cues differently from controls, (2) whether captive lizards respond more strongly to a known predator than to other predatory reptiles, (3) whether captive-born lizards recognise predators innately, whether captive-born lizards have reduced predator recognition compared with wild lizards and whether time spent in captivity reduces responses to predators, and (4) whether the avoidance response to predator detection differs between naive and experienced lizards. There was no significant difference in the number of tongue flicks to predator scent among wild, wild-born and captive-born lizards, suggesting that predator detection is innate in the pygmy bluetongue lizard and time in captivity did not reduce predator recognition. The number of tongue flicks directed towards brown snake scent was significantly higher than that to the novel and water controls for all lizard origins. Lizards of all origins continued to bask in the presence of predator scents, suggesting that chemical cues alone may be insufficient to instigate an avoidance response and other cues may be required.