BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Disclaimer: These are not my animals, they are all wild Eastern Water Skinks. Some live in our back yard, the others live along a pathway near our house. I just wanted to share photographs of these beautiful and energetic skinks.

Wild EWS in our yard:




Baby EWS



EWS along a path/bikeway. Sorry for the low quality, they were taken with a mobile phone (I don't exactly walk to the local shops with a DSLR, ).
Each one of these is a different skink.

Nice work with the pictures.

Seen a few in collections over the years, but have never kept them myself. I may have to remedy that one day, they are a from a genus of skinks that I find really interesting ( Eulamprus ).

Cool skinks,ive kept southern water skinks,they are quite entertaining,especially in a group situation,must get around to keeping some again

Nice photos of interesting skinks. Once in a while I leaf through my copy of Cogger and drool over all the Aussie skinks that are not available to me!

Mark.

mark_w wrote:Nice photos of interesting skinks. Once in a while I leaf through my copy of Cogger and drool over all the Aussie skinks that are not available to me!

Mark.

FYI a new edition of Cogger is released in March, the long awaited 7th edition. The most anticipated release in Aus herpetology for a decade or more. It's going to cost $150 au , most book sellers are taking orders already.

Thanks! Taking photographs of them is quite enjoyable. I don't go near areas habitats that house many different species, so being a stone's throw away from a location that has a bunch of skinks is pretty awesome. I've noticed the EWS are quite curious little things. The baby one up there would skitter away if I moved closer, then pop it's head out to see if I was still there. It's an endearing behaviour, the bigger on often stays hidden away for longer. I have to approach very carefully so not to scare it, although I can get much closer to it (1-2 metres as opposed to 2-3 meters) than the baby.

The ones along the pathway (lower quality images), didn't really care that I was within 2-3 metres of them. Once I got too close however they skittered off into the rocks.

If I ever plan on getting a different species of skink, EWS are quite up there on my wishlist.

RoryBreaker wrote:

mark_w wrote:Nice photos of interesting skinks. Once in a while I leaf through my copy of Cogger and drool over all the Aussie skinks that are not available to me!

Mark.

FYI a new edition of Cogger is released in March, the long awaited 7th edition. The most anticipated release in Aus herpetology for a decade or more. It's going to cost $150 au , most book sellers are taking orders already.

Thanks RB. I remember them saying the same thing about the 6th Edition!!! I will have to order a copy. Hopefully the new edition will have embraced the idea of subspecies and regional forms?

Mark.

They are quite variable even within a small area. There are lots along the Murray River in parts as well, can range from almost black to speckled like your photos and up to 30 cm although normally around 20cm when mature which makes them a handful. They even bite sometimes when caught.

I've kept them before; similar to keeping blueys - do quite well even without a lot of insect material in the diet. The adult males are entertaining but get into a power stuggle although don't seem to do each other much damage. Very easy to raise and breed, in fact quickly get out of control in a small pond area etc. I had a small population in my backyard in Melbourne in the day, they spread to the neighbours properties in suburbia, but get a bit suicidal around pools.