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 […]
Tag: Lizard Lab
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 either […]
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 captive […]
Note: this blog post is republished from Fonti’s web site Dominant individuals tend to have greater monopoly over food and mates and therefore have more offspring compared to subordinate individuals. Are these successes attributed to greater cognitive ability? Or are dominant individuals just better at freeloading from their clever subordinate counterparts? We investigated whether dominant […]
We are looking for a highly motivated and suitably qualified candidate to conduct a PhD program of research on reptile visual ecology, commencing in 2017. The successful applicant will be guided to develop a project to investigate the visual performance and ecological adaptations of a range of lizard species with differing life history traits. The […]