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By: Fonti Kar & Julia Riley “Never study an animal that is smarter than you” – Dr Martin Whiting An adult female tree skink after performing the discrimination task we used to quantify their learning ability – she successfully removed the blue lid from this dish and accessed the food reward . . . → Read More: Tree skinks go to school: The complexities of social learning in lizards  Comments are closed  Behaviour, Cognition, Egernia, Publications, Social intelligence, Sociality, Tree skink project  Egernia striolata, Fonti Kar, herpetology, Julia Riley, lizard, social intelligence, social learning, sociality, The Lizard Lab, tree skink Animals often instinctively assess their environment, and display innate behavioural responses. For example, many newly born reptiles and fish know how to respond to predators – knowing when to “fight” and when to “flee” – right after hatching out of their eggs! Innate behavioural responses, especially in times of peril, may be the difference . . . → Read More: Up for a fight or doing a runner, for a lizard it could be in their genes There was some interest in our recent paper on bluetongue lizards (blueys) and why they have this amazing blue tongue, which is actually a UV-blue tongue. (See our previous blog post.) Here is an interview from ABC news: Helen Shield interviews Martin Whiting on ABC radio, Hobart (nation wide). 11 June 2018. http://whitinglab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ABC_radio_11.6.2018-1.mp3 . . . → Read More: The Bluetongue interviews Comments are closed Behaviour, Bluetongue lizard, Bluetongue skink, Uncategorized ABC news, ABC radio, Arnaud Badiane, Gemma Veness, Helen Shield, Pau Carazo, Tiliqua scincoides An enduring question among fans of blue-tongue lizards is why the blue tongue? Why have such an outrageously coloured tongue, given that the vast majority of lizards have a regular old pink tongue? Blueys (bluetongue skinks) are something of an Australian icon. They are part of Australian folklore and most Australians have encountered them . . . → Read More: Why blue tongue? A potential deimatic display has been uncovered in blue-tongue skinks Comments are closed Anti-predator behaviour, Behaviour, Bluetongue lizard, Bluetongue skink, Colour, Communication, Deimatic display anti-predator behaviour, Arnaud Badiane, bluetongue lizard, bluetongue skink, deimatic display, Kate Umbers, Lizard Lab, Pau Carazo, Sarah Campbell, Sergio Naretto, The Lizard Lab, Tiliqua scincoides It’s been a very busy year, which explains why I am only now writing this blog post from my trip to China earlier this year (May-June). I had the amazing opportunity of seeing one of the world’s most endangered lizards—the crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus), in the wild, and working with one of the largest . . . → Read More: Dispatches from the field: new adventures with endangered crocodile lizards and oriental garden lizards Imagine being a frog during the chaos of the breeding season and navigating the gathering crowds around the pond. How do you know who might be a suitable mate let alone whether they are male or female? One solution is colour. If one sex, typically males, is able to turn on some bright colour . . . → Read More: Turn up the colour: male frogs use bright colours to avoid confusion at the pond Comments are closed Animal signals, Behaviour, Colour, Communication, Frog colour change, dynamic sexual dichromatism, frog, Grant Webster, Litoria revelata, Litoria wilcoxii, Rayna Bell, The Lizard Lab By Jodie Gruber The cane toad (Rhinella marina) has been spreading rapidly across northern Australia since its introduction to control sugar cane beetles in 1935. While toads have been the focus of considerable research, we still have a poor understanding of how behavioiural traits vary across the range, particularly with respect to traits that . . . → Read More: Hot off the press! Toads at the invasion front are more prone to explore and take risks Comments are closed Behaviour, Cane toads Cane toad, Invasive species, Jodie Gruber, Lizard Lab, personality, The Lizard Lab by Fonti Kar Animals often find themselves in direct competition with other individuals for resources and mates. Because fighting is costly, many species honestly signal their fighting ability to avoid injury (non-escalated fights). For example, in flat lizards (Platysaurus broadleyi), males can resolve dominance status by displaying their UV-reflective throats to their opponent. . . . → Read More: Why do winners keep winning? Marco Barquero’s hard work has paid off! For his PhD, Marco travelled far and wide in his quest to study signalling in Jacky Dragons. Chapter 1 has just been published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Marco studied three populations for which we had genetic data (thanks to Mitzy Pepper and Scott Keogh at . . . → Read More: Jacky Dragons have labile displays and don’t discriminate among populations Comments are closed Animal signals, Behaviour, Visual ecology animal signal, Jacky dragon, Lizard Lab, Marco Barquero, Richard Peters, signal evolution Part I By Martin Whiting This post is long-overdue! Here, we are reporting on two field trips to our new study site in Albury, in New South Wales, close to the border with Victoria. In December of last year, Martin, Dan and Geoff While (University of Tasmania) went on a field trip to establish . . . → Read More: Dispatches from the field: the social lizard landscape (Albury, New South Wales) |
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