Gigas?

[ChristianH26]

Forgive me if I’m completely wrong here but the Latin name for Indo blueys is Tiliqua Gigas (meaning giants I think) but indo skinks are smaller than Australian skinks so why are the smaller indo skinks called gigas’? If there was ever a definition for shower thoughts I think this would be it

[mb606587]

Interesting. To be fair though, only one species of Australian skink is predominately larger than most of the Indonesian skinks, and that's the Northern. One could make a case that Tiliqua gigas evanescens (Merauke), sometimes at 30"+, is the largest species of skink, only rivaled by the Prehensile Tailed Skink of the Solomon Islands. The Merauke Blue Tongue Skink is also colloquially referred to as the Giant Blue Tongue Skink, and only received a subspecies designation in 2000. So prior to that, it was only known as Tiliqua Gigas.

[ChristianH26]

Ah okay that makes more sense. Thanks for clearing it up