Question: Have you hatched any eggs before?

Yes I have! I mainly work with lizards that give birth to live young, which means they don’t have eggs. But I do work with one strange lizard, called the three-toed skink, which lays eggs in some parts of Australia but gives birth to live young in other places. These lizards lay eggs that have shells so thin they are see-through and they hatch within a few days of being laid. You can sometimes find these lizards in your garden – they live underground but you might find them under rocks or under rotting leaves and logs. They are small and brown and look a bit like a snake, so if there are also snakes where you live, you need to make sure you don’t mix up the two.

One of my friends at uni look at how goannas and water dragons hatch out of their eggs. They have a little tooth on the end of their nose that helps them cut through the eggshell. They then push themselves out of the shell head-first.

Other people in my lab have also looked at how alligator eggs hatch. Alligator eggs in a clutch tend to hatch all at once, and there is evidence that the unhatched gators can hear the squeaks of their brothers and sisters hatching around them, so they come out too!