BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Got these from a guy which had 8 Meraukes. He had 4 batches from 4 different females. I had my doubts about one animal, because he had the pattern of an IJ. His impressive size (biggest of them all except one enormous female) and his massive tail made me think that it could be a new Merauke. Now I have two unrelated animals. I didn't take an animal from the "IJ" male though.

This one was born on 04-08-2012:


This one on 25-08-2012:


Their temporary setup:

Who bred these do they have a website? These are absolutely beautiful!
WOOOOW!!!

Love that second one! They're gorgeous. Congrats

Don't know if it's okay to post a link to his site, so forgive me if I'm doing something illegal here. You see the big female and the "IJ male", but these are pictures from last year. Already told him it's not a good idea to house them together with eachother or a bearded dragon though his enclosures were really big. He's got himself a little pet store which looked pretty good (for a pet store..)

josgeurts.jouwweb.nl/foto-albums/paring-blauwtongskinken

Did these babies come from that pairing?
If so the male was an IJ and the female was a Merauke, and the most beautiful female Merauke I've ever seen.

I laughed so hard at the beardie watching them mate

Very impressive Merauke markings on them.

xxmonitorlizardxx wrote:Did these babies come from that pairing?
If so the male was an IJ and the female was a Merauke, and the most beautiful female Merauke I've ever seen.

Niels D wrote: I had my doubts about one animal, because he had the pattern of an IJ. His impressive size (biggest of them all except one enormous female) and his massive tail made me think that it could be a new Merauke. I didn't take an animal from the "IJ" male though.

The IJ male wasn't a real IJ either. He was way too big, because he was bigger than the other animals (except that beautiful female) with a massive tail. I've never seen an IJ looking like that, especially with such a tail. The female which he's mating with was the biggest Merauke.. well BTS actually.. I've ever seen, except for the father of two of my old skinks. Beautiful and big! Hope mine will reach a humongous size as well. If you ask me, size does matter!

On this side of the pond we would definitely call the male in those photos an IJ, the female a classic Merauke.

The "new" Merauke is used here to describe a skink with mostly-Merauke traits (dark forelegs with white speckles, one single line going down the back of the neck) but with bands that are thicker than normal and often the skink is more colourful that traditional Meraukes. Your first baby could possibly be described as a new Merauke here (slightly thicker bands and the forelegs aren't spotted) but I think most would just say Merauke. The second would be absolutely called classic Merauke here.

IJ traits include the very thick bands, very colourful, 3-5 lines down the back of the neck, and clean/mid-dark forelegs that may have speckles. IJs can have short or long tails.

I say here because none of these are actually described species differences, so the way we've sorted them may not be the same way you sort them. I do follow the idea of breed like-to-like, so I would never have paired such extremely different-looking animals. I aim to breed similar-looking animals from different bloodlines; I want to keep the variable looks without condensing the gene-pool.

Do you have any photos of the parents that produced your babies? And I would love to hear how you sort the species differences on your side of the pond

Mel, if those babies came from the Merauke x IJ would you still call them classic Meraukes?

He already said they didn't. But if they had, I'd have to re-assess my view that Meraukes are separate from IJs. Of course I'd want to see them as adults (I do now too, I can't wait to see how they turn out!) but it would be a very interesting thing IMO.

I would love to see what babies the IJ/Merauke pairing did produce. Did they look like new Meraukes (helping the hybrid-theory)? Or like IJs? Or something else?

I really liked the IJ patterned male with the enormous size, but I didn't want any offspring from it (!!!). I chose the ones coming from the animals with a typical Merauke look. I don't think we use another method for determing the subspecies. I just couldn't believe an IJ could reach that size, but I admit that he's got all the features of an IJ. Could he be a hybrid?

BTW, I've seen the offspring of the IJ male and the Merauke female. Their pics are on his site as well:

http://josgeurts.jouwweb.nl/foto-albums ... ongskinken

Edit: Allas, checked with the man himself and he didn't know if the pictures of the little ones are the offspring from the IJ. Sorry guys!

Fatal_S wrote:Do you have any photos of the parents that produced your babies? And I would love to hear how you sort the species differences on your side of the pond

I don't have any photos allas, but they looked a lot like the big female from the pictures, only smaller. One male looked a lot like the skink I bought (second one).

Is it possible to import for the Netherlands?

xxmonitorlizardxx wrote:Is it possible to import for the Netherlands?

Definitely, but it costs more than YOU can afford!

We're not allowed to send animals from The Netherlands with the a parcel service. There are only a few companies which can legally transport animals, but they're even more expensive than shipping.

good enclosure

Thanks! I've always kept them on coco peat, just like most of my animals (mostly amphibians). I'm using the peat that's sold as potting soil (100% biological without fertilizer) which is really cheap (6 Euro for 40 liters). The soil is a bit damp though, which is fine for frogs and such, but I have to dry it a little for the BTS. Don't want it to get to moist. The background was already in the tank when I bought it. I'm going to make my own background for the tank they're going to inhabit in the future. Love making backgrounds. I'm currently making one for an aquarium:

How do you clean the background?