Showing of Dominance???

[reaperreptiles]

Back in february I introduced my male to my female for a short period of time in the hopes of breeding. happened to snap a cool picture, has anybody observed this behavior before. Possibly showing dominance?

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[Fatal_S]

I was just talking about this yesterday. I can't say I have much experience with introductions (a few years), but I've noticed that my skinks definitely use body language with each other.

First, in all my skinks, wiggling the tail is a sign of submission and desire to be left alone. None of the skinks who have wiggled their tails have ever been willing to breed, and I've had submissive males do the tail wiggle too.

Second is the raised head. It seems to be a very effective way of saying "Don't even think about trying anything". I'm not sure I'd say it's a dominant move, since many of the skinks who wiggle the tail also raise the head. I will say that my females who do this are very much left alone by the males. It definitely seems to be a 'leave me alone' move with my females, though a few of my males will also do this to ward off another skink without resorting to violence.

Lastly, I've noticed a Locked-On-Attack-Mode that a few of my skinks use with each other and on me. It involves a very direct stare and straight line of attack (neither slow nor overly fast), and if not interrupted results in a bite. What strikes me as odd is that the victim-skink rarely ever defends itself other than to run away. Even if bitten (and these don't seem to result in dangerous holds/bites), the victim-skink generally just keeps trying to flinch away. After a bite, the attacker pauses, but does not stop being locked onto the victim, and will repeat over and over until the other has gone farther away.

Only this year did I get to see how the "locked-on-approach" differs from my males interested in breeding. My breeding males all approach in various fashions (some crazed and spazzy run right up to grab, others calm and just follow for a while until they get to a grabbing position).

[Katrina]

I observed similar with my one male when a new male was added across the room (they could see each other). Don't have enough breeding experience to comment on that, but I definitely saw this kind of thing when one male was concerned with a new addition.

[JoshChimera]

Sounds like me and the women I try to talk, Fatal_S. haha

[dsteamn]

I had a male rescue that I kept for a period of time. When I put him in the outdoor habitat with my other male, Stubbs, my soft and sweet little guy turned into Super Stubbs. He came 15 feet from across them pen before I could blink. I caught him airborne as he was lunging for the other male. He turned like he was going to bite so I dropped him about 18 inches to the ground. He landed running to get back to him. Meanwhile, the other male, a year younger than Stubbs, turned and ran. I noticed he would look in his direction, but never right at him. We put a divider in the enclosure to keep them apart. Even then, they could see a shadow of each other, and Stubbs would stalk his side of the wall, even sometimes tried to run and hurdle over it.

Now, with my female, Oscar Rose, she is relentless towards Stubbs. It doesn't matter where they are in the 12x18 foot enclosure. Whatever hide he is in, she wants it. When he gives it to her and finds another one, she wants that one too. She walks up to him in 'hunting mode' - kind of stalking him with her head low to the ground. When she gets close enough, she'll nip at his tail or back leg to get him moving. He won't look at her but likes to try and move sideways towards her sometimes, but she won't have any part of it.

When I bred them, the behaviour was VERY different. She went kind of limp when I put them together. He sprung into action and walked up to her very aggressively. He circled and bumped at her underside a few times. The entire time, her head was down but she was following him with her eyes. Her tail wagged the whole time too. He wasn't able to latch on with his bite because of his jaw problems. After nipping at her and scratching/bruising her up for about 20 minutes, she finally bit him a couple of times. When she did, he grabbed on as best he could and tried to pull her into position. Because he has no strength in his jaw, she actually started stepping in the direction he wanted her to be. Their hook up wasn't like any I've ever seen either. His spine is very damaged from his metabolic bone disease. But he got the job done. After their third time together, she didn't want him anymore, and it went back to business as usual. He became subserviant again and she became a brat.