BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hello,

While we were out of town for a long weekend, one of my female shinglebacks, whom I suspected was gravid, unexpectedly dropped from from 1048g (Thursday) to 988g (Sunday). She is still heavier than previously charted weights, but only by about 40g now. They awoke from brumation at the end of February, and while no copulation was actually witnessed, there was some aggressive behavior from her toward the male about mid April. Since then, she'd steadily gained weight up until she lost most of it this weekend. There weren't any signs of a birth of any sort, but there was some feces in the cage (I had spot cleaned it prior to departure). She is still about 100g heavier than the other female, though I imagine much of that is in her tail. Below is a picture of the two females side by side.

It it just me, or does the body shape on the possibly gravid female still seem a little more distended on the sides compared to the other? Any hope she still might be gravid? Anyone ever have any experience similar to this?

I forgot to add that the first charted weight from this year was about mid May (2.5 months after waking up... I know, sloppy record keeping this year), so it's possible that she's up more than 40g from a previous weight that wasn't recorded, but she still lost around 60 over the weekend which is weird considering it was held for quite some time.

Nathan, I don't have enough experience to give you any concrete answers, but my rugosa (who is much smaller than your asper) did actually lose 30 grams after she achieved her peak weight about a month before giving birth last year. She never gained that 30 grams back, and was at the lighter weight when she gave birth.

I tried to keep detailed records while feeding on the same days every week, and weighing on the same day at the same time. Even so, there were two times when she defecated right after I weighed her. When that happened I weighed her again, and was surprised that the difference was 70 grams one time!

Because of this, I would not be too discouraged by the weight loss. I hope she gives you twins!

I know what you mean about the weight fluctuations after defecation. Mine typically lose about 50g when defecating. The possibly gravid female's peak weight was around 1100, but that was a day after eating. I generally record the weight on the 3rd day, hoping most food has moved through their tract.

my aaperas usually drop a bit of weight around a month before dropping,usually see it in thehip area,mine are a smaller form,dont get the fat tails like your form,more like rugosa rugosa

This weekend I did read some work from a German.
He did experience that some of his Shingles did lose no weight at all, but also some did give birth to healthy babie and did not get more
weight at all after mating.
His opinion is that geting more weight or not is not telling you that she is gravid.

Very interesting, everyone. Thanks for your input. I guess I'll sit tight and keep my fingers crossed.

Richard, out of curiosity, which form of asperas do you have? I've been told mine are the "broken hill" locality.

This is a very interesting thread. Thank you all for sharing your observations and records.

scaredofbees, your asper are awesome specimens. I have my fingers crossed that she goes for you and that we're all commenting on baby pictures in the near future.

Cheers,

David

not entirely sure,but id say from the south east of range,probably victoria,there quite snall comparrd to brokenhill types and south australia forms

Bowdoin55: Thanks. I hope so, too.

Richard.C: Are those the ones that are mostly a dark chocolate brown color? All of these aspera localities are difficult to keep up with.

I feel your pain!
I guess we won't know until we see a baby in the cage.
Here is my asper 113 days after her first observed breeding this year. She has gained about 125 grams since then and is cureently sitting at a trim 1080 grams.
Sometimes I think she's gravid, other days I think I've just been feeding her too much.

mine are very dark,almost black,but have white on popping up underneath,some have the odd white patch on there backs,when born,they are black and brown banded,with the white,the original male was very dark,almost solid black,babies tend to look more like the mum,more white in them

theres lots of variety is asperas,color and size wise,most we see are the black and brown type ones,ive seen some really nice ones,from what locality im not sure,years ago i was given 2 marone ones,they were huge and solid,had green ones to,southeast qld i believe for the latter,ill have to suss where the marone ones were from,ive never seen any like those before,they were stunning

oops,forgot to ask,hows there breathing,stumpies do the deep breathing during gravidity

Richard, here's a video of her breathing. She appears to take deeper breaths than the others, but again, could just be the fatness that's causing her to breathe like this. I see a lot of bigger guys at the gym breathe like this, and I'm fairly certain they're not preggers.

http://youtu.be/XGJsQtD1CYE

My female didn't breath too much heavier than that last year before giving birth. Normally, I can harly see her breathe. It is 10-15 seconds between each very subtle breath. She never breathed anything like yours except when she was gravid.

Just got of the phone with my dog's vet. He's willing to do an x-ray for just the cost of the film... $60 if I'm interested. I've heard anywhere from 120-150 days for gestation for these buggers, so I'll probably go at the end of this month which would be closer to the 120 day mark. I understand with mammals you don't really see skeletons until about 2/3 of the way through pregnancy, so I will foolishly apply the same concepts here.

If nothing else, I'll have a sweet x-ray of her.

There's an x-ray of a positively gravid T.r. aspera on another forum that I can use as reference.

Such an enigmatic animal. I wish they'd just get fat like everything else, but then I guess that wouldn't make them as special...

the breathings a good sign mate,ive had fatties,and they didnt breathe funny because of it,fingers crossed we see some bubs soon

If mine was breathing like that I wouldn't be able to sleep until she stopped breathing like that!

Holy Moly! I definitely would suspect she is gravid after that video...though the only experience I have is with NON-gravid female asper...

In an interesting turn of events, there is some noticeable weight gain on the "non-gravid" female and she is starting the heavy breathing as well.

I'm convinced they're all just taunting me know.

If the male starts in with this nonsense, I'm going back to tokays.