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Male and female geckos were presented with chemical stimuli (either from the skin or feces) from a same-sex unfamiliar conspecific or from themselves. As a control we used tap water. The reaction of the geckos was recorded.

We measured decision time in lizards that were performing a spontanious quantity discrimination task to look for a speed-accuracy trade-off in decision making

We collected data on food, object and space neophobia in 22 adult, captive bred Tokay geckos (Gekko gecko, 12 females and 10 males) with the aim to establish a methodology, investigate neophobia in our population, how repeatable individuals are in their response, if they show and syndrome across contexts and if there are individual differences in responses to novel stimuli

Lizards (Egernia stokesii) were trained to touch a target card to receive a food reward. This behaviour was subsequently used in a pilot to investigate visual discrimination learning and validate a new learning criterion. Thereafter a new cohort of lizards was tested in a pattern discrimination using the same procedure as in the pilot. Lizards did, however, not learn the pattern discrimination and 5 procedural changes were implemented to investigate why.

We collected data to investigate how different environmental conditions might affect learning flexibility in lizards, we tested reversal learning in the sleepy lizard (Tiliqua rugoa asper) and compared its’ performance to the relatively closely related Eastern blue-tongue skink (Tiliqua scincoides scincoides).

Test of wild A. femoralis tadpoles behavioural reaction to water-control, visual, olfactory and a combination of visual and olfactory conspecific and predator (dragonfly larvae and tinctorius larvae) cues.

Comparative cognition recently advanced towards a wider taxonomic approach evidenced by an increase in non-avian reptile learning studies but our knowledge still exhibits many gaps. In primates, sociality is linked to enhanced cognitive ability. My aim was to investigate if sociality affects cognitive ability in four Australian lizard species. I specifically focused on behavioural flexibility, which is an index of an organism's ability to cope with environmental change at a cognitive level. I applied the ID/ED attentional set-shifting paradigm which includes several colour / shape discriminations, reversals of these discriminations, an acquisition of a new colour / shape discrimination and a shift from colour to shape (and vice versa). Moreover, I tested how age affects learning, if behavioural flexibility correlates with unpredictable environmental conditions and how inhibitory control is exercised in different contexts. Finally, I tested if individual differences in learning could be explained by sex utilising a meta-analytic approach. All four tested species discriminated between one dimensional stimuli, however, only three out of four showed behavioural flexibility and only two species successfully completed the shift stage learning each set of stages like a new problem. Furthermore, juvenile lizards learnt at adult levels, behavioural flexibility was enhanced in the arid-adapted species and lizards showed context specific inhibitory skills. Neither trials to criterion nor the number of successful individuals differed between the tested species belonging to the Egernia group implicating no adaptations based on sociality in the tested context. Furthermore, the fourth tested, non-Egernia species, failed to perform even a single reversal. Importantly, resource predictability predicted learning proficiency in one species suggesting that other species-specific adaptations underlie differences in learning between species. Similarly, in my meta-analysis a sex difference emerged only between species. Overall, my results contribute important new insights into lizard cognition, however, we need more data on a broader range of lizards to make distinct conclusions on how sociality or ecology affect learning.

For animals to survive until reproduction, it is crucial that juveniles successfully detect potential predators and respond with appropriate behavior. The recognition of cues originating from predators can be innate or learned. Cues of various modalities might be used alone or in multi-modal combinations to detect and distinguish predators but studies investigating multi-modal integration in predator avoidance are scarce. Here, we used wild, naive tadpoles of the Neotropical poison frog Allobates femoralis ( Boulenger, 1884) to test their reaction to cues with two modalities from two different sympatrically occurring potential predators: heterospecific predatory Dendrobates tinctorius tadpoles and dragonfly larvae. We presented A. femoralis tadpoles with olfactory or visual cues, or a combination of the two, and compared their reaction to a water control in a between-individual design. In our trials, A. femoralis tadpoles reacted to multi-modal stimuli (a combination of visual and chemical information) originating from dragonfly larvae with avoidance but showed no reaction to uni-modal cues or cues from heterospecific tadpoles. In addition, visual cues from conspecifics increased swimming activity while cues from predators had no effect on tadpole activity. Our results show that A. femoralis tadpoles can innately recognize some predators and probably need both visual and chemical information to effectively avoid them. This is the first study looking at anti-predator behavior in poison frog tadpoles. We discuss how parental care might influence the expression of predator avoidance responses in tadpoles.

While foraging or during social interactions, animals may benefit from judging relative quantity. Individuals may select larger prey or a patch with more food and, likewise, it may pay to track the number and type of individuals and social interactions. We tested for spontaneous quantity discrimination in the gidgee skink (Egernia stokesii), a family-living lizard. Lizards were presented with food quantities differing in number or size and were able to select the larger quantity of food items when they differed in number but not when items differed in size. We show, for the first time, superior spontaneous discrimination of items differing in number over size in a lizard species, which contrasts with previous findings. Our simple method, however, did not include controls for the use of continuous quantities, and further tests are required to determine the role of such information during quantity discrimination. Our results provide support for the use of the parallel individuation system for the discrimination of small quantities (four or fewer items). Lizards might, however, still use the approximate number system if items in larger quantities (more than four) are presented. Overall, we uncovered evidence that species might possess specific cognitive abilities potentially adapted to their niche with respect to quantity information (discrete and/or continuous) and the processing system used when judging quantities. Importantly, our results highlight the need for testing multiple species using similar testing procedures to gain a better understanding of the underlying causes leading to differences across species.

Recently, there has been a surge in cognition research using non-avian reptile systems. As a diverse group of animals, non-avian reptiles (turtles, the tuatara, crocodilians, and squamates - lizards, snakes and amphisbaenids) are good model systems for answering questions related to cognitive ecology; from the role of the environment in impacting brain, behaviour and learning, to how social and life-history factors correlate with learning ability. Furthermore, given their variable social structure and degree of sociality, studies on reptiles have demonstrated that group living is not a pre-condition for social learning. Past research has undoubtedly demonstrated that non-avian reptiles are capable of more than just instinctive reactions and basic cognition. Despite their ability to provide answers to fundamental questions in cognitive ecology, and a growing literature base, there have been no systematic syntheses of research in this group. Here, we systematically, and comprehensively review studies on reptile learning. We identify 92 new studies investigating learning in reptiles not included in previous reviews on the same topic – affording a unique opportunity to provide a more in-depth synthesis of existing work, its taxonomic distribution, the types of cognitive domains tested and methodology that has been used. Our review therefore provides a major update on our current state of knowledge and ties the collective evidence together under nine umbrella research areas: (1) habituation, (2) conditioning, (3) aversion learning, (4) spatial learning, (5) learning during foraging, (6) numerical competency, (7) learning flexibility, (8) problem solving, and (9) social learning. Importantly, we identify knowledge gaps and propose themes which offer important future research opportunities including how cognitive ability might influence fitness and survival, testing cognition in ecologically relevant situations, comparing cognition in invasive and non-invasive populations of species, and social learning. To move the field forward, it will be immensely important to build upon the descriptive approach of testing if a species can learn a task with experimental studies elucidating causal reasons for cognitive variation within and between species. With the appropriate methodology, this young but rapidly growing field of research should advance greatly in the coming years providing significant opportunities for addressing general questions in cognitive ecology and beyond.

Recently, there has been a surge in cognition research using non-avian reptile systems. As a diverse group of animals, non-avian reptiles [turtles, the tuatara, crocodylians, and squamates (lizards, snakes and amphisbaenids)] are good model systems for answering questions related to cognitive ecology, from the role of the environment on the brain, behaviour and learning, to how social and life-history factors correlate with learning ability. Furthermore, given their variable social structure and degree of sociality, studies on reptiles have shown that group living is not a pre-condition for social learning. Past research has demonstrated that non-avian reptiles are capable of more than just instinctive reactions and basic cognition. Despite their ability to provide answers to fundamental questions in cognitive ecology, and a growing literature, there have been no recent systematic syntheses of research in this group. Here, we systematically, and comprehensively review studies on reptile learning. We identify 92 new studies investigating learning in reptiles not included in previous reviews on this topic – affording a unique opportunity to provide a more in-depth synthesis of existing work, its taxonomic distribution, the types of cognitive domains tested and methodologies that have been used. Our review therefore provides a major update on our current state of knowledge and ties the collective evidence together under nine umbrella research areas: (i) habituation of behaviour, (ii) animal training through conditioning, (iii) avoiding aversive stimuli, (iv) spatial learning and memory, (v) learning during foraging, (vi) quality and quantity discrimination, (vii) responding to change, (viii) solving novel problems, and (ix) social learning. Importantly, we identify knowledge gaps and propose themes which offer important future research opportunities including how cognitive ability might influence fitness and survival, testing cognition in ecologically relevant situations, comparing cognition in invasive and non-invasive populations of species, and social learning. To move the field forward, it will be immensely important to build upon the descriptive approach of testing whether a species can learn a task with experimental studies elucidating causal reasons for cognitive variation within and among species. With the appropriate methodology, this young but rapidly growing field of research should advance greatly in the coming years providing significant opportunities for addressing general questions in cognitive ecology and beyond.