Stanley F. Fox, Regents Professor Emeritus & Curator of Herpetology
Behavioral Ecology, Evolutionary Ecology, Herpetology
Ph.D., 1973, Yale University
Email: stanley.fox@okstate.edu
Specific Interests
In general, I advance and utilize a field experimental approach to behavioral and evolutionary ecology, employing mostly lizards as model subjects. I am particularly interested in the development of lizard social organization at both the ontogenetic and evolutionary levels, studying lizards in the United States, Mexico, and Chile. I am also interested in the behavioral ecology associated with tail autotomy in lizards, exploring the use of the tail in lizards as a status signalling badge. I am currently conducting field and laboratory studies of Crotaphytus collaris, especially in regards to the possibility of the adaptiveness of early sexually dichromatic characters and sexually different behavior among reproductively immature hatchlings, a phenomenon I call precocial sexual selection. I am also studying group-living and care of neonates in a high-elevation lizard species of the Andes in Chile. I have conducted research on herp community ecology as well, especially turtle communities, and also worldwide amphibian declines. Finally, I am involved in research related to climate change and effects on South American lizards.
Selected Publications
- Fox, S.F., J.K. McCoy, and T.A. Baird (eds.). 2003. Lizard social behavior. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
- Sasaki, K., S. F. Fox, and D. Duvall. 2008. Rapid evolution in the wild: changes in body size, life-history traits, and behavior in hunted Japanese mamushi snake (Gloydius blomhoffii) populations. Conservation Biology 23:93-102.
- Husak, J. F., S. F. Fox, and R. A. Van den Bussche. 2008. Faster male lizards are better defenders not sneakers. Animal Behaviour. 75:1725-1730.
- Karsten, K. B., L. N. Andriamandimbiarisoa, S. F. Fox and C. J. Raxworthy. 2008. A unique life history among tetrapods: an annual chameleon living mostly as an egg. PNAS 105:8980-8984.
- Karsten, K. B., L. N. Andriamandimbiarisoa, S. F. Fox, and C. J. Raxworthy. 2009. Sexual selection on body size and secondary sexual characters in two closely related, sympatric chameleons in Madagascar. Behavioral Ecology 20:1079-1088.
- Pincheira-Donoso, D., S. F. Fox, J. A. Scolaro, N. Ibargüengoytía, J. C. Acosta, V. Corbalán, M. Medina, J. Boretto, H. J. Villavicencio, and D. J. Hodgson. 2011. Body size dimensions in lizard ecological and evolutionary research: exploring the predictive power of mass estimation equations in two Liolaemidae radiations. Herpetological Journal 21:35-42.
- Anderson, M. L., C. N. Cavalieri, S. F. Fox, and F. Rodríguez-Romero. 2012. The differential effect of tail autotomy on sprint performance between the sexes in the lizard Uta stansburiana. Journal of Herpetology, in press.
- Santoyo-Brito E., H. Núñez, and S. Fox. 2014. Predation by the Rufous-banded Miner, Geositta rufipennis, on the lizard Liolaemus leopardinus. Boletín del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Chile, 63: 69-72.