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Social lizards know what is more but not what is bigger!

by Whiting | Jul 16, 2021 | Cognition, Egernia, Publications

This blog post was written by Birgit Szabo. Birgit did her PhD in the Lizard Lab, working on cognition in lizards, with a focus on behavioural flexibility. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern in Switzerland, working in Dr. Eva...

Dr. Birgit Szabo talks lizard smarts!

by Whiting | Oct 15, 2019 | Behaviour, Cognition, Egernia, Lab news

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...

What tree skinks know about change: A story in colour and shape

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...

Tree skinks go to school: The complexities of social learning in lizards

by Fonti Kar | Jun 27, 2018 | Behaviour, Cognition, Egernia, Publications, Social intelligence, Sociality, Tree skink project

By: Fonti Kar & Julia Riley “Never study an animal that is smarter than you” – Dr Martin Whiting Animals learn about their environment and use what they have learnt while foraging, to increase mating success, avoid predators, and overall increase their...

Hot off the press! Roommates are not all they’re cracked up to be (if you’re a lizard)

by Riley | May 6, 2017 | Egernia, Sociality, Tree skink project

Recently, myself and collaborators published our study that found – social experience has a crucial role in development of a family-living lizard. We also discovered that despite their social nature, the Australian tree skink (Egernia striolata) does not...

Skinks and Ladders: A family-living lizard’s learning ability is not affected by their home environment

by Riley | Dec 30, 2016 | Cognition, Egernia, Herpetology, Publications, Social behaviour, Tree skink project

By Julia Riley A family-living lizard’s ability to navigate through a complex maze is not linked to how they were raised We have found that the learning ability of the Tree Skink, a lizard that lives with family, is not linked to growing up with others. These lizards...
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