Being a lone lizard is no barrier to learning new skills according to scientists at the University of St Andrews.
Boffins at the School of Psychology and Neuroscience put Australian tree skinks through their paces to find out if being brought up alone hindered their ability to negotiate a maze.
Professor Richard Byrne of the University of St Andrews said: “Unlike the case of social mammals and birds, we found no evidence that the social environment during development had changed the lizards’ learning ability.
“Social rearing didn’t affect whether lizards learnt this complex spatial task, or how quickly they learnt it.
“One possible explanation is that tree skinks, with their variable social tendencies, may be adapted to show natural resilience. Social or solitary upbringing, it makes no difference to them.”
The results of the study have been published in the scientific journal Animal Cognition.
The research team raised tree skinks alone and paired with another juvenile until they were about a year old.
They then put each lizard in a maze, where the reptile had to tackle a set of five ladders and three ledges to get a food reward.
Only two of the five ladders were climbable, and the researchers measured how long it took each lizard to learn the correct path.
Previous research had suggested animals with complex social structures would benefit from a social environment during development, and thereby acquire more powerful learning abilities.
Also involved in the study was Julia Riley, who is a PhD candidate at Macquarie University.
She said: “Previous studies have shown that for social mammals and birds – including humans, rats, monkeys, and chickens – being removed from social contact during development negatively affects how they grow up.
“Individuals raised alone are more fearful, anxious, more sedentary, less social, and have a harder time learning.
“But so far, no one has looked at how being raised away from other individuals would affect a social reptile.”
