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Article History

Received: 14 January 2025

Revised: 10 February 2025

Accepted: 18 February 2025

First Online: 1 March 2025

Declarations

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: All procedures conducted during this study were approved by Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), National Taiwan Normal University (license No. 106023) and were performed in accordance with the local law of the Wildlife Conservation Act in Taiwan. All sampling and toe clipping procedures were conducted following the protocol guidelines provided in “Taiwan Wildlife Survey—Amphibian Resources Survey Manual” (Lue et al. ) approved and published by Forestry Bureau, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, Taiwan. In this study, toe clipping was identified as an optimal method due to its ability to yield a wealth of information from a single sampling event. This technique facilitated the collection of genetic samples, essential for longitudinal population genetics studies, and provided material for age determination via skeletochronology, all while ensuring non-lethality for the subjects. The toe-clipping procedure, proficiently conducted by S-ML and T-WL, benefited from their combined 14 years of experience in handling and researching Takydromus lizards, alongside comprehensive animal ethics training. The method of toe clipping used here, involving the partial removal of a single toe, has been scientifically proven to have no negative impact on the survival rates in a closely related congener (T. viridipunctatus), as supported by long-term capture-mark-recapture data (Shaner et al. ; Lin et al. , ). Throughout the study, lizard handling was kept to a strict minimum (less than five minutes per individual), ensuring their prompt return to their natural habitat within the following day.

: The authors declare no competing interests.