"The study has important implications for our understanding of humans' effect on animal populations and animals' resp This detail suggests different levels of caution against potential predators. The findings show that urban lizards spend less time in their refuges following simulations of predator attacks and that the become habituated, as their successive hiding times decreased faster than those of the rural lizards. The main aim was to detect the possible influence of urbanisation on their antipredator response in terms of activity, time spent hidden in refuges after attacks and habituation to predators after repeated attacks," Sinc was told by Jose MartÃn of the Spanish National Museum of Natural History and co-author of the paper, published in the journal Animal Behaviour. "The species we used in the study was the common wall lizard ( Podarcis muralis). To do this, they simulated human attacks on two populations in completely different settings: rural and urban habitats. Scientists from the Eco-Ethology group of the University of Pavia (Italy) and the National Museum of Natural History (CSIC) in Spain used the lizards to analyse their reactions to attacks by human predators and the strategies they adopt, depending on the local risk level. Lizards are an appropriate model for research into this subject, as they can be found in high densities in many environments and are relatively easy to observe in the field and handle in laboratories. For this reason, scientists are investing much time in studying wild animals' capacity to tolerate these disturbances. Humans have an increasing presence in different species' natural habitats.