BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hello!

I'm looking for a positive ID for my BTS...

Meet Indie, I've had him/her since May '07 (about 3 mos. old at purchase from a herp expo in Ontario), a totally sweet-hearted lizard

S/he was sold to me as a Northern... having a bit of trouble deciding if this is true or not! Any ideas?

A few baby pics from May:



Pics a few weeks ago:



Enclosure pic:


Mmm... food time...

I'm no good at ID'ing, but looks more Eastern than Northern to me. Very cutie skink at any rate; I love the name Indie.

can't give "positive" ID...I would say somewhere between IJ and Merauke...checking out the bottom 5 or 6 pictures on the Merauke page it seems Indie could be kin...however, there are mostly IJ features there, especially the solid banding...I would put my biggest bet on IJ.

dosnt look northen at all to me it looks kinda eastern or eastern mix nice skink any way

Looks Merauke with the colouring, black speckly legs, and the temporal scales slightly darker. My Merauke looks similar.

Is the tail really long, and can you get a full body "bird's eye view" shot?
If not Merauke, looks Indo to me.

Thanks for the compliments! S/he is indeed very cute (like all BTS... haha), and very, very calm. I figured Indie was a pretty unisex name since I don't have a sex on him/her, either.

Here are a few better full-body shots...




SailleSkinLover, your Merauke looks very similar to mine... Nuchal stripe, speckled legs, faded temporal stripe, and the body striping looks almost the same.

Her pattern looks a bit "cleaner" and/or less busy than the IJ's on their page, and her tail looks a bit longer relative to body size than theirs, too. Her tail is about the same length as her SVL.

To me the Indo's patterns look too mottled... but again I'm a newbie at Tiliqua

I've got my fingers crossed that I can nail down a species, I've always been enamored by bluies and this has probably been one of my favourite herps, to date. I've worked with breeding a few other herp species, and would love to get into BT's... but I definitely wouldn't breed her if she could be a mutt.

Not a Northern. My vote is Merauke or Indo. That is a really pretty skink whatever it it. Love the tummy!

Her personality is amazing, too. I do herp presentations for small school groups (big kids and little kids, haha) and she is just amazingly relaxed with people. I run the reptile wet lab for the college I did my vet tech at, bringing her there in a few weeks with others from the "zoo," I'm sure she's going to do great

Looks like an T. gigas evanescens.

She's a Beaut, anyways. I see a difference in the belly scales from my boy, yours has more black on her belly. ChuffChuff has pretty much solid pinkish-orange belly scales. I'll try and get a pic tomorrow night. (charging up my old and stubborn camera batteries at the 'mo!)
Mine is a total sweetie too, and I got him as an adult rescue. ( he's wild caught and was very badly treated until I got hold of him)
Definitely not a Northern from what I can tell.
Where are you located at, by the way?

Sounds good!

I'm on the south shore of Montreal, QC. I'm hoping that I can swing by an Ontario herp expo in the late spring/summer to seek out one or two more like her... I bought her from the Kemptville, ON herp expo (from Port Credit Pet Centre, if anyone is familiar).

I reckon shes Merauke to me, but doesnt really matter what breed it is because shes wonderful anyways

f.C

I don't know what the border rules are about transporting herps, (Fatal, you'll have to let us know!) but it'd be so cool if I could "stud" Chuffers out and make captive bred baby Meraukes!

omg soo beautiful! what an adorable litttle skink what ever s/he might be

Tis Merauke, I do believe. And a nice looking on at that. However, as an indonesian species, he's likely wild caught as a baby. Did you go for a vet visit? Wild caught BTS or Captive Born (WC mother) can often have parasites and worms, something you'd want to check out before breeding. Good luck in finding a mate for him/her.

Saile, I could easily bring Chuff in, but I've yet to look up how to legally send him back. I'll be looking into it soon though (in case I breed my indos this year), after I move, so I'll keep everyone in the loop.

I'm thinking of starting a small business with both my herps being sold in Canada and US, as well as import/export between our countries. Thing is, it seems to be less hassle for a business to do it at times. I'm going through yet another set of hoops to get my 3 indos now -.-'

I'd definitely say Merauke (T. gigas evanescens) and a cute one at that!

I did a few fecals the first weeks I bought him/her, only finding nonpathogenic Monocystis sp. (earthworm protozoan-- not surprising considering she gets nightcrawlers regularly).

That's a bummer that she's probably wild caught, the place I bought her from now has two strikes against them (wrong species, and they told me 100% CBB!). Ah well, if they are not very commonly CB, what can you do for now, eh?

I will definitely be looking into finding a mate once I can confirm the sex.[/i]

Hey, you got her looked at, treated and she's clean. Therefore, she should be good to go. You already said the personality is great, so for you, it's a good skink. And once you get a mate, you can be the one making the CBB babies, and you can be honest.

It's definately not an Eastern or a northern. I'd be more inclined to say a merauke, But could be Indo or even a cross of the two. I'm in Australia and we don't have the luck of having those guys here.

But as I said earlier - Definately not a northern or an Eastern - actually - it's not an Australian brand at all!

Merauke! Still a young one and Indo's and Merauke's tend to look VERY alike as babies (as do kei islands) -- but this one I think is safe to say Merauke.