Stay-at-home parents make for a cooperative family of lizards
The great desert burrowing skink, a lizard living on the sandy plains of Central Australia, has been discovered to live in family groups within elaborately constructed tunnel complexes. Published in PLoS One, researchers Steve McAlpin, Paul Duckett and Adam Stow from Macquarie University, in partnership with Parks Australia, found that family members of the great desert burrowing skink contribute to the construction and maintenance of burrow systems that can have up to 20 entrances, extend over 13 meters, and even have their own specifically located latrines. That these social lizards invest in a long-term housing structure that benefits them, their offspring or siblings is unprecedented in a lizard and may provide a unique insight into the evolution of family groups and cooperation. According to the researchers, the faithful nature of adult pairs, which were found to breed together over consecutive years, is likely to be essential for this family cohesion,...