BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hi all!

I have had my Bluey around 15 months now, I couldn't tell you an age as the previous owner didn't know. Anyhow I have wasted so much time on other reptile 'beardie' forums before finding this place.

It has been suggested I have a female merauke, just wondering if anyone could try and confirm for me. Here are a few pics, let me know if you require different shots

Thanks

Dan

dat belly

welcome to the forum!

Thank you, I'm not quite sure if the belly comment was good or bad though? lol

I think its an adorable belly

Im leaning towards female - However I have no clue regarding id-ing indonesian species Im afraid!

it was a good thing. red bellies are pretty, and theres such contrasts between your bts body and belly colour
( i cant help you with the ID ing on this one. wait for the other owners to comment )

Thanks both of you, it was the surprised face that threw me as I've only seen one other BTS in flesh and that didn't have a colourful belly

Appears to be an Irian Jaya...but the Merauke/IJ "boundary" can be debated and actual locality is quite difficult to determine...

Sexing is very difficult...but it does appear to have more "female" qualities...

Definitely healthy!

I do hope it is female as I've always referred to it as a 'her', I've never seen anything pop out or any sperm plugs anywhere. I realise that doesn't necessarily mean female tho.

Thank you she wasn't so healthy when i first got her, mainly down to a permanent diet of just bananas from the previous owner and a tiny viv!

It looks more Irian Jaya than Merauke to me.
I'm not sure how to sex I.J.s but male Meraukes have distinct bulges at this time of year and seem to drop sperm plugs quite frequently.

IJ x Merauke
The trident on the neck a spaced out banding with infrequent color pattern, fat tail, and weird pattern legs.

I think that monitorlizard is the king of IDing. Anything he says after seeing pictures I will accept as gospel truth lol.

I think that monitorlizard is the king of IDing. Anything he says after seeing pictures I will accept as gospel truth lol.

That is a frightening thought. . .

Hah. He seems to have an eye for IDing, he speaks up and then we see another 2 pages of everyone agreeing with his assessment. Can't argue with success.

SapphireTigress wrote:

I think that monitorlizard is the king of IDing. Anything he says after seeing pictures I will accept as gospel truth lol.

That is a frightening thought. . .

Because I'll become the ruler of the world

Hah. He seems to have an eye for IDing, he speaks up and then we see another 2 pages of everyone agreeing with his assessment. Can't argue with success.

Occasionally you will find two pages of people disagreeing with me. But if we're I.D.ing a gigas usually I'm right. That and sexing.

I think that monitorlizard is the king of IDing. Anything he says after seeing pictures I will accept as gospel truth lol.

SapphidreTigress wrote:That is a frightening thought. . .

Nice skink

Your not in canada so that rules out eastern cross,i think it has a meurake appearence,possably a wild caught,theres alot of weird looking intermediate looking ones from that region,hence why ij types havnt been recognised scientifically yet,alot off work still needs to be done yet,,im sure theres some indo species yet to be discovered to

So your specimen probably falls into the ij bracket,showing differing traits,a very healthy looking specimen im leaning towards it being a female

Morning all!

Wow thank you for so many replies! So are we all thinking she is probably a bit of a mongrel and very likely wild caught? I don't mind if she is a cross at least it makes her a little bit different lol

Funnily enough I haven't seen her since the end of November, she has been buried away sleeping out the winter but her ears must have been burning with everyone talking about her as she was out and about this morning

Could somebody tell me what it means when you list in your signature something like 0.1.0 next to the species? I realise the 1 is obviously how many I just don't understand why the different digits?

First number refers to male, second to female and third to unsexed.
So 1.2.3 means 1 male, 2 females, and 3 unsexed.

Vegasarah wrote:Hah. He seems to have an eye for IDing, he speaks up and then we see another 2 pages of everyone agreeing with his assessment. Can't argue with success.

Monitor Lizard is good at IDing, but he often forgets that there are lots of gray areas and that because the scientific community hasn't actually put much time into studying BTS, especially the Indonesian ones, that most of this is just made up terms to describe what breeders and owners are seeing. So this is one interpretation of IDing, but if you go by the scientific descriptions then IJs are not described and there is no such thing as 'newer Meraukes'. So all of this should be taken with a grain of salt!