by Whiting | Sep 12, 2018 | Cognition, Egernia, Publications, Sociality
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...
by Whiting | Aug 5, 2018 | Herpetology, Lab news, Lizard Lab facilities
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...
by Whiting | Jun 12, 2018 | Behaviour, Bluetongue lizard, Bluetongue skink, Uncategorized
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...
by Whiting | Jun 8, 2018 | Anti-predator behaviour, Behaviour, Bluetongue lizard, Bluetongue skink, Colour, Communication, Deimatic display
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...
by Whiting | Dec 2, 2017 | Animal signals, Behaviour, China field work, Colour, Communication, Crocodile lizard, Dispatches from the field
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),...
