An open-source eye-tracking system adaptable to diverse terrestrial vertebrates reveals state-dependent visual acquisition in lizards.

In Pogona vitticeps, active visual sampling alternates with many-seconds ocular stillness, with saccades occurring at 3–5 Hz and state-linked pupil constriction.

• Why it matters: Knowledge of how animals acquire visual information is limited to a few model species, making it hard to infer general principles across diverse terrestrial vertebrates.
• What they did: The team built a low-cost, open-source eye-tracking framework using photogrammetry, 3D modeling, and 3D-printing headmounts adaptable to different head–eye geometries, then recorded detailed gaze behavior in Pogona vitticeps.
• The result: They found movement-coupled large binocular saccades with strong axial bias plus small isotropic monocular saccades, and showed active states correlate with pupil constriction, enabling cross-species comparisons of visual acquisition strategies.

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