BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

(I hope i placed this in the right place. Otherwise, I'm so sorry) (:

I bought him as a ''Tiliqua Gigas'' but I got unsure because I first thought he looked more like a IJ, because of the thicker stripes.
Then I were reading a little about the merakue and the ''new'' merakue and now i'm just deeply confused.

He is about a year old, 40cm tall, A little bit nervous and hissing sometimes but mostly rather calm

I also found this while trying to figure it out, if I have to pick between indonesian and merakue I would say merakue if we're just looking at the scales.
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=22347

Whatever he is, I want to find him a girl, knowing the specific species would help alot

I'm seeing all Merauke, but with a cool speckled band pattern. Very nice looking merauke.

I'm leaning Merauke x IJ
-Neck trident
-Leg pattern
-Banding

Woah, that's some fast answers! Thanx guys
So, if i decide to breed him, I should look for a merakue then?

I think its a merakue x IJ

I agree that he is a hybrid of Meruake x IJ

I personally prefer the look of the IJ so if you want to breed hybrids I'd try and find a nice female of that species

If it actually means I'm able to look for both IJ and Meruake, that really helps.
Just even finding a BTS here in Sweden indeed is difficult.
And I have no idea but I believe finding someone who is interested in shipping one probably is rather expensive and difficult as well.. :/

Actually, since he's a hybrid, I would recommend not breeding him at all. We're currently privileged in that we can always get new bloodlines of pure Merauke, IJ, and Indonesian BTS from the wild, but it may not be that way forever. It's better to keep the subspecies separate now so that pure bred BTS don't become rare in the future. Hybrids can make great pets, but breeding hybrids seems irresponsible to me.

donkeybuff wrote:Actually, since he's a hybrid, I would recommend not breeding him at all. We're currently privileged in that we can always get new bloodlines of pure Merauke, IJ, and Indonesian BTS from the wild, but it may not be that way forever. It's better to keep the subspecies separate now so that pure bred BTS don't become rare in the future. Hybrids can make great pets, but breeding hybrids seems irresponsible to me.

If the OP kept breeding to one of the two species in the hybrid, wouldn't they eventually breed out the other species. IE: Take the M x IJ and breed with another IJ, after so many breedings, wouldn't the Merauke side simply dilute to nothing? I'm no gene expert; so, please correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: Since the OP is in Sweden, what are the chances the skink they have is wild caught, thus being an intergrade rather than a hybrid?

jdheff1982 wrote:

donkeybuff wrote:Actually, since he's a hybrid, I would recommend not breeding him at all. We're currently privileged in that we can always get new bloodlines of pure Merauke, IJ, and Indonesian BTS from the wild, but it may not be that way forever. It's better to keep the subspecies separate now so that pure bred BTS don't become rare in the future. Hybrids can make great pets, but breeding hybrids seems irresponsible to me.

If the OP kept breeding to one of the two species in the hybrid, wouldn't they eventually breed out the other species. IE: Take the M x IJ and breed with another IJ, after so many breedings, wouldn't the Merauke side simply dilute to nothing? I'm no gene expert; so, please correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: Since the OP is in Sweden, what are the chances the skink they have is wild caught, thus being an intergrade rather than a hybrid?

There is a very good possibility that it is wild-caught, but there is also a very good possibility that it is an intergrade(because IJ's and Meraukes are two of the most common types available).

If the OP kept breeding it to IJs VISIBLY the skink will look like an IJ, but it would still be an intergrade. It would also take A LOT of breedings to get that result.

IMO it is not worth breeding that skink to anything.

It is a very pretty blue tongue but breeding to a pure irian jaya or merauke to breed out the other sub species, in theory, would actually eventually work but has one major flaw. It would take MANY years of breeding to finaly make them pure and there really isn't anyway to know when that will actually occur, like what litter will eventually be the completely pure one. And in the mean time all the hybrids produced while trying to breed out either sub species would be filtered back into the blue tongue community.

I figured the diluting process would take time, just wasn't certain how much time. But, I guess, no one would ever know when the unwanted subspecies would be 100% bred out.

Well it makes sense, too bad it is not the greatest idea with the species/hybrid breeding, he has such a great temper and personality, maybe i'll search for a breeding pair instead then, because I'm sure I want to breed BTS. They are soo rare here and I want more people to realize how awesome they are C: And having 3 skinks would be awesome I kinda counted on building a multi-story terrarium anyway ^^