Sampling and housing
The males of S. occidentalis used in this study (N = 42) are the same as those used in Megía-Palma et al (2018b, 2020). The housing conditions have also been described elsewhere (Megía-Palma et al. 2020). A residual body condition index was calculated as the residuals of the regression between the log-transformed values of body mass and snout-vent length of the lizards (Dunlap & Mathies 1993). A sample of blood (< 10 µL) and fecal pellets from the lizards were taken to diagnose infections by both hematic and intestinal coccidians (see Megía-Palma et al. 2018b). The number of ticks and the presence of mites were recorded. We measured the spectral reflectance of the yellow and blue color patches, the throat, and the back with an Ocean Optics 2000 spectrophotometer (for details see Megía-Palma et al. 2018b). In addition, total surface of the blue patches was calculated by multiplying its length by its width. Both were measured with a ruler to the nearest mm. The area of the blue patch was correlated with the SVL of the individual (F1, 40 = 7.19, P = 0.010). We calculated the residuals of blue patch area on SVL to remove this effect. Thus, higher values of (residual) blue patch area indicated lizards with proportionally larger blue patches. The lizards were released at the end of the trials to their original site.