by Whiting | Sep 25, 2015 | Lab news, Publications, Small-eyed snake
While there are snakes that have been shown to be territorial in an ecological context, such as Taiwanese kukrisnakes which defend sea turtle nests (citation below), territoriality in a sexual selection context has never been demonstrated in a snake. Until now. Jonno...
by Whiting | Jul 16, 2015 | Augrabies flat lizards, Lab news, Publications
David Attenborough has had, and continues to have, a remarkable career making documentaries about the natural world. To this end, he has inspired generations of biologists. We were very pleased when he turned his attention to amphibians and reptiles for the making of...
by Whiting | Jul 6, 2015 | Animal signals, Behaviour, Visual ecology
Marco Barquero’s hard work has paid off! For his PhD, Marco travelled far and wide in his quest to study signalling in Jacky Dragons. Chapter 1 has just been published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Marco studied three populations for which we had...
by Whiting | Jun 22, 2015 | Animal signals, Colour, Communication, Publications, Science news
Interested in colour signals and wondering about the best approaches to researching colour and what you should be reporting? Two recent papers from members of the lab and fellow researchers at Macquarie and elsewhere should help! In the first paper, Kemp et al....
by Whiting | Jun 18, 2015 | Cane toads, Conservation
Scientists (including Lizard Lab associate Jonno Webb) have been trying to ameliorate the impact of toxic cane toads on the threatened northern quoll. They have been doing this using taste aversion learning, where quolls are fed nausea-inducing cane toad sausages from...
by Whiting | Jun 10, 2015 | Lab news
The Lizard Lab welcomes our friend and colleague Dr. Feng Xu, visiting from Xinjiang, China, for a year! Feng is visiting from the Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land (KLBB), Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of...
by Whiting | Aug 10, 2014 | Cognition, PhD opportunity, Social behaviour, Social intelligence
We are looking for a PhD student to work on an Australian Research Council grant testing for social intelligence in Egernia skinks. Here is some background: Uncovering the evolution of intelligence is one of science’s greatest challenges. Social intelligence theory...
by Whiting | Aug 8, 2014 | Uncategorized
We are looking for a PhD student interested in studying the evolution of colour signals in lizards. The overarching aim of the project is to study adaptive co-variation across and between lizard colour patterns/signals in relation to socio-ecological factors (e.g....
by Whiting | Aug 4, 2014 | Book club, Books
Review by James Baxter-Gilbert How to Make a Zombie: The Real Life (and Death) Science of Reanimation and Mind Control by Frank Swain. 2013. 256 pp. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-85168-944-6. If the concept of population dynamics has taught us anything it is that...
by Whiting | Jul 27, 2014 | Cane toad cognition, Cognition, Lab news, Social behaviour, Tree skink project
We have acquired an amazing new indoor space in which we can study lizard and toad behaviour and cognition. We have a small room for a Morris Water Maze for studying spatial cognition (ably set up by Jodie Gruber), a much larger room with lots of shelves and CCTV...
