Talk:Tiliqua rugosa

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus to support any move in particular - default to no move. JPG-GR (talk) 22:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I always called this critter a Shingleback lizard, as did most australian books I have read. Shingleback lizard gets 3410 ghits, Shinglback skink gets 2510 ghits and stump-tailed skink gets 897. Given it is a skink and a propensity these days for more exact descriptive names, I'd say Shingeback Skink is the most appropriate name. How do others feel?
 * 6,810 for "Bobtail lizard", and the accepted name gets 50 more ghits than that. cygnis insignis 23:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Support move

 * 1) .Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) .--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 21:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

moved

 * 1) I moved it to the species name, and recast the start to clarify the multiple variations on the regional common names. This establishes the most accepted, and always cited, nomenclature; the unique name. There is a number of altered redirects in my contributions, this supports my proposition (IMO). If this move is reversed, please take care not to remove my slight expansion (with citations) to the article. cygnis insignis 01:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I have reverted the move. With discussion less than 24 hours underway and your intended destination different from the requested one, this is not an uncontroversial move and the appropriate new destination (if any) will need to be decided after discussion and consensus. JPG-GR (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * By was of demonstration, I believed I could shortcut the discussion. I would not object if there was a reason for thinking it was not an improvement. As the editor above demonstrated, it would be reversible if a better solution was provided. Is there one? cygnis insignis 06:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not Australian, but I've always heard Stump-tailed skink here in the states. I wouldn't oppose a move, but I think a move towards the scientific name would be best.  bibliomaniac 1  5  04:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Following this discussion on the WP:AAR talk page, I'm surprised and disappointed that cygnis insignis' move to Tiliqua rugosa was reverted. --Jwinius (talk) 11:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * As you stated later (here), User:cygnis insignis made no reference to a discussion at WP:AAR nor any naming conventions for making the change. When there's a proposal to move A to B and a user comes along, mid-discussion, and moves A to C with no cited reasons, I get suspicious. For the record, I have no opinion on the current nor future location of this article. Let the consensus of those "in the know" determine that. JPG-GR (talk) 02:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Common names
I grew up in the WA Wheatbelt, have lived in Perth most of the time since and have never heard anyone refer to them as anything other than "bobtails".

See for example:


 * "Western Australian Museum, Queensland Museum and Museum & Art Gallery of NT Reptiles Database"


 * Government Media Office, Ministerial Media Statements, Nick Griffiths, Tue 13 January, 2004 "Lotterywest grant to assist Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre"

Is there a rival common name for the Eastern bobtail, which might be the only exception? Grant |  Talk  11:55, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I know 4 people who breed them and have seen them on hundreds of pricelists over the years. That coupled with all of the literature I've found favors the term "shingleback" with one peer reviewed source making a passing mention to the slang terms used coloquialy.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 16:01, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Where are the breeders from? Western Australia is where all Tiliqua rugosa, except the Eastern bobtail, are native. No offence, but they are a very common animal here and local English language names carry more weight in terms of WP:UCN than usage among a subculture of reptile enthusiasts.


 * It's akin to non-American gila enthusiasts believing that they know better than people in North America. Grant  |  Talk  06:10, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * As a matter of fact I know people in other countries that have forgotten more about Gilas and Shinglebacks than most people in those animal's native countries will ever know. That's a ridiculous argument.  The bulk of the published literture uses shingleback not chazzwazzer.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 17:46, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry but that is all irrelevant. And overstated, since I am not asking for all references to shingleback to be deleted. WP policy is clear: we give prominence to common names in the relevant variety of English, which in this case is Western Australian English. Grant  |  Talk  23:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Just saw one of these little blokes wander by the patio door and pulled up wikipedia to check out a few facts. Shingleback, Tiliqua_rugosa? You got to be kidding me? Tiliqua_rugosa is just toffee nosed science speak. Shingleback sounds like a US pop band. They're bobtail lizards to a West Aussie. C'mon wikipedia, do the right thing and give these guys the name they actually answer to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.112.140 (talk) 07:46, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I live in Western Australia and we call them Bobtails. I have never heard anyone call them anything else. We have a family of bobtails in our backyard 106.69.24.22 (talk) 11:55, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Hearing in T. rugosa
The abstracts to two papers I coauthored years ago; I'll incoorporate them into the article:

Single unit recordings have been made from the primary auditory nerve of the lizard Trachysaurus rugosus. Both spontaneous and nonspontaneous fibers were found. The spontaneous fibers exhibited multimodal interval histograms and responded to a tone pig by an initial rate increase, an afterinhibition and a rebound. Tuning curves showed peaks between 700 Hz and 3 kHz, and corresponded to the “cochlear audiogram” derived previously from cochlear potentials. A marked seasonal dependence on the number of active fibers correlated well with the increase of summating potential found to occur during early spring. The absolute sensitivity was quite high, with thresholds below 25 db SPL. The most sensitive fiber responded to the rustle of clothing a few feet away.(J.R. Johnstone and B.M. Johnstone (1969b): Unit responses from the lizard auditory nerve. Exp. Neurol. 24, pp 528-537.)

The cochlear potentials of several species of lizard were measured, in particular Trachysaurus rugosus. Auditory responses were measured both at the round window and in scala tympani. The round window membrane was found to have considerable effect on the recorded potentials causing an attenuation and differentiation of summating potential (SP). Geckos and pygopodids produced a large (30 μv) neural response and smaller SP and cochlear microphonics (CM) while skinks, varanids and agamids produced a large SP (20 μv) and smaller neural response and CM. In T. rugosus, frequency response for a constant SP indicated a probable best hearing range of 750–3000 cycle/sec. The Q10 for SP varied from 1.5 at high sound pressures to 3.5 at low sound pressures. When pairs of tone pips were applied to T. rugosus the amplitude and latency of the neural response to the second tone pip were greatly increased. The SP in T. rugosus was very sensitive to season, increasing ten-fold during spring.(J.R. Johnstone and B.M. Johnstone (1969a): Electrophysiology of the lizard cochlea. Exp. Neurol. 24, pp 99-109.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by RayJohnstone (talk • contribs) 17:14, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can help me with the layout and references.RayJohnstone (talk) 14:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm an amateur naturalist and can't follow this section. I noticed someone tagged the content 4 years ago for being overly technical and no one has attempted to remedy the situation yet. This section is currently useless to an average person who has no knowledge of animal physiology. The entire section needs to be reworded in layperson terms and extraneous facts should be removed. If this material can't be reworked in a way that is useful to the general public, it might be best to remove the section until someone has the time to fix it. – Down time (talk) 21:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Edits on 11/4
To this article, I added many elements to make it from a stub plus to a full article. First, I deleted about two hundred unnecessary words that were built on nonreputable facts, or from repeat sections. I added a Behavior Section and placed five subsections under that with Diet, Predators, Captivity, Reproduction, and Socialization. I also added a couple Sensory subsections and a section on Conservation. Lastly, I expanded on the Intro section with another paragraph and fixed up the Description section. Hopefully the article is better now! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikhil.sekar (talk • contribs) 07:51, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Peer Review 11/17/21
The only sections that I felt required substantial addition/revision were the behavior and distribution sections. I felt that these were areas missing key details about the lizard after doing some basic research on the species. The Sleepy Lizard is well-known for having a stable home range and demonstrating territorial behavior to floating conspecifics. I added information about their burrows and male-male interactions in the distribution and habitat section. In the behavior section, I added information on agonistic behavior between individuals whose home ranges overlap. I also included information about the extent of parental care and why monogamy in this species has only premating advantages. All of this information about distribution, territorial behavior, and parental care was found in primary literature that I added to the citations. I also made edits to the lead section to make it more concise and clear. A few grammar edits allow the lead section to read more smoothly and successfully summarize the entire article for the reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Evanmbradley (talk • contribs) 00:44, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The content of the page seemed to hit all the major points but needed some organizational revision. The subcategories formerly under "behavior" did not pertain to behavioral characteristics. As such, they were made into separate headings to give the page a stronger structure and organization. Few sentences were modified as well for grammatical structure and flow purposes. Ritusidgal (talk) 22:37, 18 November 2021 (UTC)ritusidgal