I am back at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia for 5 weeks and today I met an old friend 😍 the easter bluetongue skink 🦎 Oh, how I missed this place ❤️ and the people @lizardlab.bsky.social

Our TREE paper is now out in its final published form! Well done @yoricklambreghts.com for leading this and doing the heavy lifting! DM him for a PDF. @cellpress.bsky.social

How and why does cognition vary so greatly between individuals and species? In @natrevbiodiv.nature.com, we propose the "Predatory Intelligence Hypothesis" which posits that the cognitive challenges associated with predator–prey interactions drive a cognitive co-evolutionary arms race rdcu.be/e5KIj

New paper published online in TREE, with @lizardlab.bsky.social, Tobias Uller, Camilla Whittington, and Geoff While! We discuss how prenatal development can influence the emergence of kin recognition and social evolution more broadly. Message me for PDF. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Our recent paper on lizard societies now online in a special issue of Animal Behaviour. DM if you want me to send you a PDF.

It’s a proud moment when your star exPhD student, now early career researcher, is the senior author on a Biology Letters paper in the same issue of Biology Letters as you. And to be precise, the paper above! @lizabeldm.bsky.social

A huge congrats to Dr Jai Lake! Jai just gave his exit seminar at Macquarie on why lizards are social. To be slightly more precise, his PhD was about the mechanisms underlying sociality. Papers are submitted and in prep! Watch this space. Jai was cosupervised by Geoff While at Univ. Tasmania.

A neat artivle published in Scientific American about a study published by @lizardlab.bsky.social @biodiversityguy.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/zoo-...

Zoo Lunch Mishap Reveals Lizards’ Hidden Fire Detector

Australian “sleepy” lizards are not so sleepy when it comes to fire

scientificamerican.com

‘Pirate Lizards’ Can Get Around on 3 Legs www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/s...

‘Pirate Lizards’ Can Get Around on 3 Legs

nytimes.com

3-legged lizards can thrive against all odds, challenging assumptions about how evolution works in the wild theconversation.com/3-legged-liz...

3-legged lizards can thrive against all odds, challenging assumptions about how evolution works in the wild

Most lizards probably don’t survive devastating injuries. But a new study documents 122 cases of limb loss across 58 species – these exceptions shine a new light on natural selection.

theconversation.com

🦎THREAD: We just published something wild in @asn-amnat.bsky.social - lizards missing entire limbs not only survive, but some appear to actually thrive in the wild?! Let me tell you about the "three-legged pirate" lizards 🏴‍☠️ [Paper: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... ] (1/n)

Hot off the press! Check out our new paper on sleepy lizard aka shingleback skink fire cue discrimination led by @ecolojolly.bsky.social DM if you want a PDF.

Just out - our review of social learning in reptiles and its implications for animal culture. Part of a special issue on animal culture and conservation in a changing world. Happy to send a PDF if requested.

Our latest superb starling work in @nature.com. We observe long-term reciprocal helping relationships, and suggest reciprocity is an underappreciated mechanism promoting the stability of cooperatively breeding societies. Led by Alexis Earl and @gerrycarter.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A cryptic role for reciprocal helping in a cooperatively breeding bird - Nature

A study of the cooperative breeding behaviour of superb starlings during 40 consecutive breeding seasons over 20 years reveals long-term reciprocal helping between both related and unrelated individua...

nature.com

Huge congrats to Jai Lake for submitting his PhD thesis on the mechanisms underpinning social complexity. A huge amount of work - Jai learnt a whole range of new skills in the process. Jai was cosupervised by Geoff While (Uni Tasmania), with help from Dan Hoops + colleagues at Columbia University.

Check out biologists Maddi Holmes and Kathy Potter from @muche-macquarie.bsky.social talking frog science at the Sydney Comedy Festival.

Very happy and humbled to have received this award. A huge thanks to all my wonderful colleagues @scienceanu.bsky.social and abroad who made this possible!

Members of the U.K. and international scientific community are invited to sign to show their support: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Open letter to the President of the Royal Society – time to stand up for your values

If you wish to show your support for the letter below regarding apparent inaction by the Royal Society in the face of breaches of its code of conduct by Elon Musk FRS, please sign below. I invite anyo...

docs.google.com

Public Statement on Recent Attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives Sincerely, the Executive Board of the ASIH (American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) #TeamFish #TeamHerps #ASIH www.asih.org/2025-asih-ex...

Charles Darwin was born on this day in 1809. Happy birthday to the architect of natural selection and evolutionary theory - a true legend! Here he is as a youngster. We will be celebrating his birthday in our lab meeting today. #charlesdarwin #darwin #originofspecies #naturalselection

Ever wondered why some animals are social and others solitary? I was surprised by the link between animal behaviour and our own social structures New #EcolClips with @lizardlab.bsky.social m.youtube.com/watch?v=bfER... #ecology #biology #animals #behaviour #reptiles #nature #science #australia

The Evolution of Social Behavior with Prof. Martin Whiting | EcolClips

YouTube video by EcolClips

m.youtube.com

Check out this amazing cartoon by Meghan Swan (IG: @deadpixelproductions) explaining tongue colour in the Australian blue tongue skink (blueys). It was such a pleasure collaborating on this project, which was part of a course at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Huge congrats to recent grads Dr. Victoria Russell and Dr. Yorick Lambreghts cosupervised by me, Geoff While and Erik Wapstra through the University of Tasmania. Both spent substantial time in the Lizard Lab at Macquarie University. Well done!

Check out our new paper led by Ko-Huan Lee and Stephan Leu: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Enterobacteriaceae community dynamics in sleepy lizards: Richness, prevalence and co‐occurrence over time

Our study examined the co-occurrence patterns of gut bacteria in 87 sleepy lizards over their activity season, finding that bacterial richness and prevalence generally increased over time, likely due...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Check out our cool new findings showing how developmental temperature and corticosterone have long term impacts on mitochondrial efficiency that coincide with consistent differences in body size through life! A fantatsic team effort doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

From eggs to adulthood: sustained effects of early developmental temperature and corticosterone exposure on physiology and body size in an Australian lizard

Highlighted Article: Incubation temperature and prenatal corticosterone exposure have independent sustained effects, but not interactive effects, on morphological and physiological traits in the delic...

doi.org

Check out our new paper "Effect of elevated incubation temperatures on learning and brain anatomy of hatchling and juvenile lizards" published online in Journal of Comparative Physiology B and led by Iván Beltran. @sherculanohouzel.bsky.social rdcu.be/d2So4

Christine Wilson (@keytarchris) is retiring from the Lizard Lab after 10 years service! Chris has helped with field work, ordering supplies, checking on animals on weekends and public holidays including Christmas. Chris has been a great friend and supporter of the lab and we can’t thank her enough!

Huge congrats to Rachel Wong for graduating with a Masters of Research! Rachel worked on quantity discrimination in water skinks, which we hope to submit for publication soon.

The Lizard Lab had a great week at ISBE in Melbourne a few weeks back. We had lab alumni, honorary and current members all give great talks! Well done everyone! #isbe2024