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The bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps

Nature Methods volume 21, pages 1964–1966 (2024)Cite this article

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The Australian bearded dragon is so called for its distinctive ‘beard’ of spiky scales that can darken and expand during social and defensive displays. This lizard has become a reptilian model system to study the evolution, function and dynamics of neurons and neural circuits (including during sleep) in the amniote brain.

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Fig. 1: The bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps.
Fig. 2: Viral tracing in the brain of bearded dragons.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. Northrup, N. Vogt and S. Dizdarevic for veterinary care; T. Klappich and M. de Vries for care of our animals; A. Arends, M. Klinkmann, S. Candlish, J. Knop and C. Thum for technical assistance; S. Junek for the photograph of Pogona in Fig. 1, and V. Stempel and A. Barker for comments on the manuscript. Work funded by the Max Planck Society, the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 834446) and the DFG (CRC1080) (G.L.).

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  1. Lorenz A. Fenk

    Present address: Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Martinsried, Germany

  2. These authors contributed equally: Lorenz A. Fenk, Felix Baier.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Lorenz A. Fenk, Felix Baier & Gilles Laurent

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  1. Lorenz A. Fenk
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  2. Felix Baier
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  3. Gilles Laurent
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Correspondence to Gilles Laurent.

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Fenk, L.A., Baier, F. & Laurent, G. The bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps. Nat Methods 21, 1964–1966 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-024-02485-2

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