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 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...
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 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),...
by Whiting | Sep 23, 2017 | Animal signals, Behaviour, Colour, Communication, Frog
Imagine being a frog during the chaos of the breeding season and navigating the gathering crowds around the pond. How do you know who might be a suitable mate let alone whether they are male or female? One solution is colour. If one sex, typically males, is able to...
by Fonti Kar | Sep 6, 2017 | Animal signals, Cognition, Communication, Water skink project
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?...
by Whiting | Jul 24, 2017 | PhD opportunity
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...
