Breed refers to a man made "look", like a dog breed. In this case, because this is how they are naturally found in the wild it would be either species or subspecies (not really important, more of an FYI!
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I don't know of any Easterns in Canada so definitely not Eastern. It can be confusing though, because you will likely find Easterns in the wild that look very, very similar - Easterns have tons of variation and lots of them look a lot like some of the Irian Jaya BTS found in Indonesia. Most often, in North America, they are IJs though, there aren't very many Easterns in North America and lots of IJs because you can still import BTS from Indonesia whereas you can't import from Australia.
The difference between IJ and "Newer form of Merauke" is purely opinion because neither of these is actually a described species. So whether Marvin is an IJ or new Merauke will really depend on the person you are asking and what their opinion is - makes it confusing! Unfortunately no one spends money on researching the species of BTS found in Indonesia so that is a big gray area. When we decide by looking at picture what a skink is, we are just looking at pictures - we don't typically have pictures of the parents or any idea where this skink was from (if it was imported from Indonesia). So it isn't a very accurate method.
I would tend to think of Marvin as an IJ due to his colors and very distinct, thick bands. Either way, he is gorgeous! I'm sorry I can't offer a better, less confusing explanation. Hopefully others with lots of experience will post their thoughts.
