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 James Baxter-Gilbert | Jun 17, 2018 | Anti-predator behaviour, Behaviour, Herpetology, Lizard ecology, Water dragon project
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...
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...
by Whiting | Sep 10, 2016 | Dispatches from the field, Frog, Herpetology, Lizard Lab adventures
After attending the 8th World Congress of Herpetology in China, I had a night and a day in South Korea before flying on to my next destination, the US. What to do? As it turned out, I had a windfall (thanks Julia). I met Amaël Borzée, a PhD student from Seoul National...
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 | Mar 7, 2013 | Herpetology, Science news
I just learnt today that Hobart Muir Smith passed away a few days ago at age 100. Hobart is the most published herpetologist of all time (likely > 1600 publications) and is especially well known in North America and Mexico for his massive contribution to...