Quantity discrimination, decision-making, and the role of early-life conditions in a lizard

Quantity discrimination affects a range of behaviours essential for fitness, including social interactions, navigation, and foraging, and is widespread across animal taxa. However, in reptiles, evidence for this ability—particularly for small number contrasts—remains limited and mixed. Early-life conditions, such as hormonal exposure and temperature, can also shape brain development and cognitive performance, potentially affecting numerical abilities. Here, we tested the ability of the common garden skink (Lampropholis guichenoti) to discriminate between quantities and the effects of elevated prenatal GCs and incubation temperature on quantity discrimination and decision-making. We assessed quantity discrimination using a spontaneous choice test with food as a stimulus. We subjected lizards to five two-choice tests differing in the number of items (1 VS 4, 1 VS 3, 2 VS 4, 2 VS 3, 3 VS 4) while controlling for total length and area. Contrary to our predictions, we found no evidence of qu..., , # Data from: Quantity discrimination, decision-making, and the role of early-life conditions in a lizard

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.08kprr5gv](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.08kprr5gv)

## Description of the data and file structure

Three data files are included in this repository.

lizard_database_number shows the main data employed in the study. The time is given from a few seconds to minutes.

measures_crickets and orientation_test provide data on extra experiments we performed, and which results are reported in the supplementary material of the manuscript.

### Files and variables

#### File: lizard_database_number.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* position: position of the enclosures within each rack
* lizard_id: identity of the lizard
* trt: treatment applied to the egg. A is for control eggs and B for CORT-treated. Numbers indicate the incubation temperature
* sex: sex of the lizard (female/male)
* current_enclosure: number of the individual enclosure the lizard was hel...,