Skink Photo Op

[Kbell31]

Booored today so I decided to take some pictures. I wonder if I would take this many of my kid if I had one....

[WanderingChai]

Aww! I <3 the indo neck

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

How long is he? Cool merauke.

[Spindown]

What a beautiful merauke! I love the pensive looking out the window picture. Is it pure? I ask because that double striping is crazy awesome but very strange.

[Katrina]

Gorgeous!!! Beautiful skink!!

Sapphire - Meraukes come with all sorts of paint jobs. What makes it "pure" or not is just our definitions of what a Merauke should look like. There is an insane range of colors and looks that T gigas evanescens can come in, but we can't really judge if it is pure because no one knows enough about the BTS found on Indonesia, so there aren't really clear lines on what is Merauke vs IJ and for all we know there are other subspecies as well that could be identified.

[Spindown]

true enough I didnt mean any disrespect if it was a mix, some of those mixes are jaw dropping! I was just curious because i've seen "classic" Meraukes, and I apparently have a "New Form Merauke" and this guys was totally different! I was preparing to be even more excited about Meraukes (if possible) than i was before!

[Kbell31]

Thank you all As of January 14, Indah was 22 inches and 1.76lbs. I have seen a lot of Merauke pics but havent seen any others with the double bands like she has. Im sure they are out there though but for now I will take her unusual characteristics!

[StaceyLeigh]

Gorgeous! Love the picture looking out the window, I bet she can't wait to get out to explore!

[Katrina]

true enough I didnt mean any disrespect if it was a mix, some of those mixes are jaw dropping! I was just curious because i've seen "classic" Meraukes, and I apparently have a "New Form Merauke" and this guys was totally different! I was preparing to be even more excited about Meraukes (if possible) than i was before!

I didn't think you meant any disrespect, I was just trying to explain that the "classic" and "new form" are just terms people have come up with to describe a look. I think I probably didn't explain it properly... there isn't any scientific basis or any kind of formula to distinguish those, it is just based on personal opinion. Same with the IJ vs Merauke IDing - it is just people's opinion of what an IJ looks like and whether any given skink looks more Merauke or more IJ... It isn't like, say Pewter corn snakes, where you know that if you breed Charcoal with Bloodred you will likely get some Pewters based on the genetics and probability involved.

Basically, those names are just ones that some people have come up with the better explain what they are looking at. So there is absolutely no way to tell if this is a mix or unpure, because we don't have enough info to know what "pure" is. We have no idea what the parents might look like to produce a Merauke like that. I know you didn't mean disrespect at all, I was just trying to say that anything like that is speculation. We just don't know enough. We could make up some sort of new name to describe this look of Merauke with the cool double banding, but that doesn't mean that it is its own locale or it is its own form and there is no way to say that a Merauke that appears to have some double banding but some "classic" characteristics is a mix of the two.

Does this make better sense? All we know is that Meraukes have AMAZING variation and come in a huge range of patters and colors. We call some "classics" and some "newer form", but this is based on absolutely nothing except someone's opinion on the look of a skink. It doesn't have anything to do with genetics or parents as far as we know. So we have no way of knowing if this skink is a mix, all we know is that it has a different paint job than we are used to seeing. To know if it is pure or if it is a mix, we need to know what pure is and how to identify it. So far we don't know that... we just know that there is LOTS of variation and lots that we can't really describe the look of. This might be some exciting new look, I'm always spotting Meraukes that I haven't seen others like before. That is why I love them so much!!

Let me know if I am explaining it properly. I know you didn't mean disrespect at all.

[Spindown]

ah yes, that made more sense, thank you for clarifying I am always paranoid that i'm coming off as rude when i'm not trying to be LOL...I do love Meraukes

[Susann]

I LOVE Indah's pattern!!!
Panana_Blue has one with a similar pattern, but those are the only two I've seen with that gorgeous pattern.

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

Similar pattern. No double striping:
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