BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

So, The BTS at the Petsmart I work at..We always just assumed it was a girl. Named her Richi..well..I found sperm plugs a few nights ago when I was cleaning her cage..Therefore..being the only skink in the cage..or store for that matter. CLEARLY Richi is a boy. right? right. I was telling one of the other employees about that one day and she honestly said..without a doubt she thought Richi was a girl because of her coloring...
She said she thought with lizards it was the same as with fish..Boys are prettier and brighter in colors...It doesnt seem as funny now but I thought it was hilarious at the time..That's like saying if your skin is an olive complexion your a boy and if your a bit more fair you must be a girl. So I printed out the part about sperm plugs and told her to look for them.

Haha, yeah, unless the skink is a hermaphrodite then you can be pretty sure Richi is a boy

The brightly-coloured males rule works for some reptiles. When the two sexes are differently coloured or ornamented, it's called sexual dimorphism (as in two "morphs" of the species, depending on the sex). This is common in polygamous ("harem-breeding") animals, where males need to protect or lay claim to a large number of breeding females, so that it is easier to spot out males.

It's also thought to be a factor in female choice situations, where females choose who they want to breed with- the more brightly coloured, "prettier" males are probably healthier, so they mate with them instead of males that are less brilliantly-coloured.

Another interesting aside, is that sexual dimorphism with super bright colours on males is more common in species that have naturally high parasite burdens. This supports the theory that these bright colour traits act as proxies for an indicator of good health to females that choose which males to mate with. "Even with all these parasites, the male still looks that good, so he must have some good genes!"

In reptiles, sexual dimorphism is common in agamid, iguanid and chameleonid lizards. Not so much in other species, or much less obvious than big colour and ornament differences.

Haha some people just don't know what they are talking about.

Hahaha if that was true my male leo would be a female and my female would be a male!!!!

now now herptiles.net jsut explained it and yes it is very true in some lizards. i own a pair myself which show sexual dimorphism. she wasnt wrong in saying that she jsut had the wrong species. just look at eatern water dragons, where the males get a high red chest adn the females are dull and boring. the funniest thing about all this was that she thinks your bluetongue in store is ugly.

I remember a while back when we bought a couple of Green Anoles that we had a pair, a girl and a boy. Mainly due to size and the fact that one was less aggressive than the other. We brought them home and put them in the sizable tank that held the female we had caught. We expected them to be very happy, one male + two females = no fights. However, the small and gentile one we picked thinking was a girl turned out to be male. He just sat there in the tank corner miserable for a day until the big male confronted him. I noticed then that the sweet little female we had bought was displaying it's red flap to the other male. I totally freaked out and ran to get another cage prepared for the small male. I put the small "female" into the tank and he's been happy in there ever since. He's still very gentile and I've never seen him display the red flap under his throat again. Just goes to show you can never really tell the gender by color, size and behavior alone.

hahah but that is exactly how you did it. you used colour and behaviour only size was out but 2 out of three pointed you to male so you got a new cage for him.

Good job she doesnt look after chameleons,that'd confuse her hahahah.

We do get chameleons in the store...lol. We get Veils..is it just me or do they seem a little...moodier than say jacksons? The jacksons we get are friendly and actually like to be handled. the veils..well they run to a corner and try to attack, clearly terrified; but we have had some that were just downright mean. Are Chameleons commonly wild caught and sold to stores?

Ask the employee how many girls she knows of who have sperm? Or how often she drops sperm plugs? Humans are stupid, I like animals.

Fatal_S wrote:Ask the employee how many girls she knows of who have sperm? Or how often she drops sperm plugs? Humans are stupid, I like animals.

Haha! I agree.. I don't like this girl at all..shes the kind that will make it up if she doesnt know the answers. Whenever anyone wants to know about Richi I go help them because after having Chomper and being addicted to this site..I know more than the other employees in the store. So abother thing that happened..A customer asked what does he eat? and she said..."Well she(still says she even though clearly a he) loves dogfood and carrots, She doesnt care for live food(finally a fact about him) but when we put the dogfood and carrots in, she just attacks it!"
and then I let the customer know about all the various other foods he can and should eat... I bought some collard greens but he doesnt seem to like them. Neigher does Chomper...any idea's as to something else? preferably somethign with high calcium because I'm not certain how often they dust her food..

Kymbadina wrote:We do get chameleons in the store...lol. We get Veils..is it just me or do they seem a little...moodier than say jacksons? The jacksons we get are friendly and actually like to be handled. the veils..well they run to a corner and try to attack, clearly terrified; but we have had some that were just downright mean. Are Chameleons commonly wild caught and sold to stores?

Yeh, my little bugger would sit in your hand, with a foot on each finger, then take offense and bite my thumb and there was nothing you could do until he let go, I loved him for his morphing cammo abilities though

[quote]Ask the employee how many girls she knows of who have sperm? Or how often she drops sperm plugs? Humans are stupid, I like animals.[/quote]

so much better except smart people who love animals - they rock

But be careful! There are also a lot of very stupid, stupid people that love animals... and they are probably the worst bunch because they don't know the bad that they are doing! *coughanimalhoarderscough*

Oh ya, it's so much *fun* when we get 20+ animals coming into the shelter from some crazy ladies house Or recently there was some dog-breeders who fell behind looking after their animals. The dogs were in horrible shape, but because the owners had seen the change gradually, they didn't even notice!

Kymbadina wrote:? The jacksons we get are friendly and actually like to be handled.

No they don't please don't handle them!

John, why don't they want to be handled at all? Pryce doesn't much like me, but he comes out of his tank on his own for cuddle/explore time. The chams would probably appreciate a bit of time outside their tanks as well. If it's not horribly stressing for them (they're freaking, biting, attempting escape) what's wrong with simple handling?

Herptiles.net wrote:But be careful! There are also a lot of very stupid, stupid people that love animals... and they are probably the worst bunch because they don't know the bad that they are doing! *coughanimalhoarderscough*

DEFINETELY!! this is why i specified SMART animal lovers