Silver & blacks

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mark_w
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Silver & blacks

Postby mark_w » Mon Nov 25, 2013 2:04 pm

Hi,
I posted these on HurricaneJens thread that went AWOL, but I am looking for opinions on the gender of these. Sorry for low quality pics.

Image

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Image

Mark.
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Dakota
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Dakota » Mon Nov 25, 2013 2:07 pm

Eh.. now I'm leaning on both being female. :chin: Any dropped any plugs or anything? The bigger one has a little more male vibes to it, though.. so not sure.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby xxmonitorlizardxx » Mon Nov 25, 2013 2:45 pm

Two Females.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby donkeybuff » Mon Nov 25, 2013 3:31 pm

I think the bigger one's a female, but I'm not sure about the smaller one.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Richard.C » Tue Nov 26, 2013 12:17 am

Im leaning towards a pair
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby RoryBreaker » Tue Nov 26, 2013 2:19 am

I have no idea on their gender, but they are filth looking skinks!

Animals we can't have on this side of the fence are always a bit like that though.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Dakota » Tue Nov 26, 2013 12:04 pm

They are very "sick" indeed, to use as a teenage context. >:D

:cloud9:
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby RoryBreaker » Tue Nov 26, 2013 2:36 pm

Dakota wrote:They are very "sick" indeed, to use as a teenage context. >:D

:cloud9:


For shizzle dude. :D
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Jeff » Tue Nov 26, 2013 6:33 pm

That's an interesting pair Mark. The bigger one really does look like a "bulky" male. While the smaller one looks female. It is more common for females to be larger, but with gigas, the size of both genders varies a LOT. I really think it is likely that you have an odd pair where the male is larger than the female.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Scotts1au » Tue Nov 26, 2013 6:37 pm

I would be going with the one with the long tail being male the other female.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Jeff » Tue Nov 26, 2013 6:42 pm

I think the opposite. :lol:
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Dakota » Tue Nov 26, 2013 7:06 pm

Jeff wrote:I think the opposite. :lol:

As do I.. haha.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby mark_w » Wed Nov 27, 2013 2:32 am

Thanks for all the replies guys. We have:

Two females.
A pair. The smaller one being the male.
A pair. The smaller one being the female.

The most popular result so far is a pair with the smaller the male but of course Jeff goes the other way....

Myself, I have been through phases of thinking each of the three above. After keeping them for a while I have a strong feeling that the big one is a girl and I think the smaller one may be a male, but I'm not sure. I do know that they show no inclination whatsoever to breed. If I lived in south Florida I would set them up outdoors. Or, I know someone who has had a lot of success with breeding major skinks by releasing a group of them in a thickly planted conservatory. I have the feeling that I am not getting anywhere...

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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Seadation » Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:26 am

Send them to me Mark and I can test out your hypothesis. They are nasty!
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mark_w
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby mark_w » Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:57 am

Seadation wrote:Send them to me Mark and I can test out your hypothesis. They are nasty!


Put my money where my mouth is you mean? You promise to send me half the babies?

All this talk of them being "sick" and "nasty" cracks me up. One assumes this is a good thing?
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Seadation » Wed Nov 27, 2013 8:20 am

If they breed you can keep 3/4 of the litter.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Katrina » Wed Nov 27, 2013 12:53 pm

Scotts1au wrote:I would be going with the one with the long tail being male the other female.


That's my first thought, although I hate to disagree with Jeff.
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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby mark_w » Thu Nov 28, 2013 3:13 am

Seadation wrote:If they breed you can keep 3/4 of the litter.


I'll see how I get on I have a few ideas for changing things to see if I can stimulate breeding but if that doesn't work I may even be interested in something like this - I wasn't completely joking. It seems to me that an outdoor enclosure, a bit like Ray's new nigrolutea set up, in an appropriate climate would be the best place to start, although preferably with several animals in a large-ish space.

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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby mark_w » Thu Nov 28, 2013 3:15 am

Katrina wrote:
Scotts1au wrote:I would be going with the one with the long tail being male the other female.


That's my first thought, although I hate to disagree with Jeff.


Hi Katrina, I hear you. It seems that Jeff is a bit of a lone wolf on this one but I value his opinion so I am left undecided!

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Re: Silver & blacks

Postby Jeff » Thu Nov 28, 2013 12:13 pm

You guys crack me up. I definitely don't claim to be an expert at sexing, especially from pictures. The things that lead me to my "guess" are:

1. The angle that the body tapers down in front of the rear legs. The males that I have had (especially gigas) tend to taper much more gradually than the females. The side of the body narrows down in nearly a straight line. The females in general narrow much faster resulting in a "round" corner right in front of the rear legs. Even though the larger skink is bulky, the body still tapers like a male.

2. The base of the tails/hips. This is not a real clear thing in the case of these two, but something about the this area on the bigger skink makes it look male to me. Proportionally the hips look fairly thin, and the tail base has irregular thickness. It's not that the tail is fat, it's that it looks a bit lumpy. When I have females with fat tails, they seem to be very smoothly shaped.

3. Just the overall impression I get of each skink individually looks the way I guessed. It actually makes it harder when I compare them to each other.

I could easily be wrong in both. I think I would be much more sure if I could see them in person. It always surprises me when I have two skinks that are easy to sex visually because the differences are ridiculously obvious, but when I try to take pictures of them together to show the difference, it doesn't show in the pictures. That's why I never assume that pictures of other people's skinks show everything accurately.
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2.2.7 T. s. scincoides
1.2.1 T. nigrolutea
2.2.0 T. r. rugosa
1.2.3 T.g. keyensis
2.0.5 T.s. chimaera
0.0.0. T. occipitalis
0.0.0. T. multifasciata
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