By Iván Beltrán Environmental temperature determines many important aspects of an animal’s life. In ectotherms, commonly known as ‘cold-blooded’ animals, the temperature experienced during embryonic development significantly impacts a hatchling’s physiology and behaviour. For instance, nest temperatures determine offspring sex in turtles and crocodilians and affect body size in squamates, a group comprised of lizards […]
Author: Whiting
Blog post by Sebastian Hoefer We often think of reptiles as somewhat simple – entirely driven by instinct and the basic need for survival. That is where the expression “Reptilian Brain” comes from. It is certainly true that the anatomy of the reptile brain is different from that of mammals, however, we do not know […]
Post by Isabel Damas One way invasive species can have a major impact on ecosystems, is by threatening native species, particularly through competition for resources. Animals typically use two strategies to out-compete their opponents: they can be directly aggressive (termed interference competition), or they can indirectly out-compete rivals by consuming more resources (exploitative competition). Our new […]
Note, this field work formed the basis for Angela’s Masters thesis. By Angela Simms I wasn’t sure what to expect on the first night searching for the Sulawesi Forest Turtle. As little as 30 minutes into the stream walk, our local guide spots a large male perched on the edge of the clear shallow flowing […]
Birgit recently gave a public lecture about her research on lizard cognition at a mini-conference “The Future of Herpetology, Inspiring Women and Forgotten Frogs: A conference promoting women’s voices in herpetology”. Watch her talk (below) and find out more about Birgit and her work on her web page. Dr. Birgit Szabo talking about smart lizards! […]
By Birgit Szabo As children we have much to learn after we are born. We learn to walk, to talk, to develop our social skills, and when we start school we learn how to read, write and do maths. Humans, and many other animals, are considered altricial, meaning that juveniles need to be taken care […]
The latest edition of Australian Geographic features the iconic Australian Frill-necked Lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii). A big part of the article, written by John Pickrell, features our own Christian Alessandro Perez-Martinez! And the top of the page features his photo (reproduced at left). Well done Christian! Have a read of the article. The paper, written by […]
Check out our new paper on social learning in the Italian wall lizard, Podarcis sicula. This work formed part of Isabel Damas’ PhD thesis, and it was a huge effort! The question of what makes an invasive species successful compared to other species, that may fail to gain a foothold in a new location, is […]
Note from Martin Whiting: This blog posts details a chapter of Birgit Szabo’s PhD recently published in Animal Behaviour and represents an enormous amount of work. Birgit did a 9-month cognition experiment, which could be the longest lizard cognition experiment thus far conducted. (Let us know if it isn’t!) The work is in collaboration with […]
This is a behind-the-scenes video tour of the lab. We will show you our research facilities, some of our study animals, and our lizard enclosures. This video was entirely put together by Cooper Van De Wal. Cooper is a student at Macquarie and volunteers in the lab. He also has his own, highly successful YouTube […]