A new research that used robotic lizards has claimed that in order to gain attention in noisy environments, lizards actually do “Push-ups.”

The scientists were immensely helped by the robots, designed to mimic the appearance and body language of live anole lizards, to confirm a long held theory that animals take the help of grand gestures like lizard push-ups and loud noises in order to attract the attention of other members of their species in noisy environments.

The new research conducted on anoles in Puerto Rico suggests that these signals are used to cut through the environmental noise.

The study also claims, “These reptiles create exaggerated, eye-catching push-ups to grab their neighbor’s attention, before using more nuanced head-bobbing gestures to communicate territorial and fitness claims.”

However, the lizards are more likely to engage in push-ups when visual obstructions or visual "noise," such as low light or blowing branches, would otherwise drown out the head-bobbing.

Terry Ord, a research associate in evolution and ecology at the University of California in Davis, reported, “They are actually changing their behavior to compensate for those noises.”

Ord, who led the study, published online on Tuesday, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also added, “The lizard research clearly demonstrates that animals use visual alert signals.”  

He concluded, “Alert signaling is thought to be widespread in the animal world, but had previously only been definitively shown in towhees, a type of bird that sends audible alerts.”

According to some other studies, audible alerts are used by tree frogs and coyotes.