by Whiting | Mar 25, 2014 | Behaviour, Cognition, Herpetology, Publications, Water skink project
Followers of the Lizard Lab blog will have read previous reports about relatively rapid learning in lizards. In those studies we typically focused on males or avoided drawing comparisons between the sexes because either the sample size was limited or the focus of the...
by Whiting | Nov 4, 2013 | Behaviour, Lab news, Science news, Sexual selection, Water skink project
By Dan Noble Sexual selection – the differential reproductive success of individuals – is a powerful evolutionary force. Sexual selection can lead to evolution of both beautiful and bizarre phenotypes, such as peacock trains, deer antlers and the complex displays and...
by Whiting | Oct 16, 2013 | Behaviour, Cognition, Lab news, Publications
Lizard cognition has experienced something of a resurgence in the last few years. To get up to speed, take a look at a previous post summarising most of the recent published work. In a new paper published online in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Ben Clark, Dan...
by Whiting | Jul 21, 2013 | Animal signals, Behaviour, Small-eyed snake, Social behaviour
Snakes have traditionally been viewed as the poor cousins of lizards where social behaviour is concerned. This is perhaps an artefact of generally being more cryptic and less tractable than lizards and therefore more difficult to study. Nevertheless, snakes are...
by Whiting | Feb 14, 2013 | Behaviour, Frog, Lab news, Publications, Science news, Social behaviour
A major interest in our lab is social behaviour and why animals live in groups. Group formation has evolved numerous times independently in many different species. Understanding the proximate mechanisms and ultimate (evolutionary) factors driving group formation is a...
by Whiting | Nov 8, 2012 | Behaviour, Cognition, Cunningham skink project, Social intelligence
Macquarie University is currently offering MQRES scholarships for prospective Australian or NZ PhD students who can commence by 15 December 2012. We know this is short notice, but the combination of a positive outcome in the latest funding round from the Australian...
