BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

yesterday when watching my female western(gravid) i was watching my large centralian shedding in cage next door,and observed it on numerous occaisions eat freshly shed sheets of skin,ive seen egernia skinks do it,but never seen it personally with tiliqua,but have heard of it

I asked if skinks ate their shed in a thread back in December and I believe Karen and Linnea said they have reason to believe their skinks do. I have not seen this in my Merauke.

I think Tea Cup might eat some of hers... I don't see how the little bits I find in her tank could be it.

I saw Sylvia eat fresh shed the first time she shed with me but not the second.



She seemed especially fond of the legs/feet booties, but after the skin dried she ignored it. Perhaps something about the oils they produce in shedding?

very interesting,yes seems to be fresh shed,mine was eating stomach and back sections

I've never caught them at it, but I'm sure it must happen! There is no way that a few pieces that i see are the whole shed.

I have seen that my male asper eat his shed almost complete.
A friend of mine did take a picture, I will aske him to send it to me.

my skink eats parts of the fresh shed. there werent even "gloves" left of this shed, and i cleaned 3 hours after he started shedding. unfortunately i have not watched him eat it so i cannot confirm my suspicions further until i have the luck of having both time and timing to watch.
however, i know from the look of what comes out a while later that it indeed used to be shed. so, ill say im 80% sure he has eaten large shed parts with intention to do it and not by mistake. he didnt do this when i got him, im not sure if its because i was more eager to clean his cage and didnt let him be, or if he eats it sometimes and sometimes not.

Fred Gaal wrote:I have seen that my male asper eat his shed almost complete.
A friend of mine did take a picture, I will aske him to send it to me.

It did take some time but here they are.

nice shots fred

Hi,

Especially multifasciata is very good in not letting me know they have shed, only when I see their poo afterwards. They can litterally get rid of all the evidence that they have shed by eating almost every scale they shed. I havetn observed such behaviour in this extend with other tiliqua's. I have seen the other species eat some shed but not like multifasciata

Cheers, Menno

thanks menno,i hadnt witnessed them doing it before,but had noticed a lack of shed left in the past,its amazing how differently each species sheds,my westerns in comparison seem to shed each scale individually

Hi Richard,
At this moment two of my western males are shedding, but they arent so active with it like centralians. The westerns just seem to wait till all shed falls off while my centralians make it a sport to shed as fast as they can. Indeed so different in behaviour. I shall have a better look at how their scales shed like you mentioned individually.

Cheers, Menno

My Western both shed different, the smaller one is very active and trys to get it off right away and the other is just waiting till is drops off.

the centralians are remarkable with how fast they get it off,my westerns also just let it do it by it self,barely rub it off,just seems to flake of individually,i have a pic of it,they are on astro turf so u can see the females single scale bits everywhere