BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hello All! Been lurking on the main website for quite some time and thought Id bite the bullet and post in the forum. As I stated I'm from the Apple Isle (Tasmania for our overseas friends) and currently am home to........................... you guessed it, a beautiful Blotched Bluetongue. I am told that in the trade overseas he would command a pretty hefty price tag but I wouldn't sell him for peanuts. He is 2 and 1/2 years old, Ive had him since he was 3 months. He was the smallest one then and he's still a bit of a runt really, but he's a good eater (pig actually) and thinks he's a monitor no doubt. He's also pretty rare down here as he is captive born, and in a state where the reptile trade (buy/sell) is illegal that's pretty hard to find.
This is Ernie (The Ern Dog, Erns Maherns, Ernie McGernie etc.)




Handsome aint he lol.

He is quite adorable. In the fifth and last pictures especially, he looks grouchy.

His head is really unique looking

welcome to the forum,nice looking exanple of a tassie blotchie

Hi!

So glad you posted, great to see your guy. He looks really different to the ones I'm used to seeing up here. He looks a very handsome fellow. I'd love to see a pic of your full enclosure too, looks an interesting setup.

Thanks guys. Ill take a few snaps of his digs tomorrow, lights out now so doesn't do it justice. Ive always contemplated running a night vision light of some description for the fun of it but they're so costly in my oppinion, and lets face it not much to see except a mound of substrate lol! Does anybody else run a night light for the BT's?

Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing, spinifecs.

Good to see someone from Tasmania. It is not very often that you will see someone with a Tassie blotch.

Cute looking fella! Loving that last picture.

ali, a few pics of his digs. He has 3 logs like that big one that I rotate through there every so often. Keeps him guessing and keeps the enclosure as a display looking new. Although those extra logs will hopefully go into a couple new displays as I hope to grow my collection by a couple one day. 120cm x 45cm. Open top and glass sliding doors, although money could have been saved there as they're pretty much always opened so he can stick his nose out and say Gday! Even went as far as buying one of those display lock things but just lol, even with em open he aint going nowhere. He knows where his breads buttered

All custom built by myself.

Great enclosure! Nice setup too, looks great.
I used to run a purple moon light overnight for heat and I did like the light it gave off. Now I just run a ceramic heat globe so no light after we turn the basking light off, but he's normally gone to bed by 5pm anyway, so yes we are just looking at substrate My lamo likes to hide, but I am secretly hoping he does more when mature, or in summer, right now he is only about 7 months old.

I used some purple night globes over the winter for my bubs.

Thanks ali. When I first got him I was using a red infrared light for him all the time but got annoyed that the globes that i pay $10 to $15 for were burning out after like 4 or 5 weeks. Thats probably close to their lifespan but to me that's just not worth it, even though the prurple and blue night lights do look pretty cool. He now just gets bog standard globes from Bunnings lol. Actually lucky enough that we dont heat him overnight as our woodfire does that for us, and in the summer its just not really required. Lol sometimes in the summer his light goes out at 7- 7.30 and you look over at like 8.30 - 9 oclock and he's still sitting there in the dark looking at us. He's a funny bloke

My lights are on from 7am to 7pm, use a timer from bunnings so i don't have to manually turn them on or off especially having to wake up early on the weekend just to turn the lights on was torture to me.
Most of the time mine are gone and sleeping before 7pm, sometimes though i will notice them wake up and roam around at 3am or other crazy hours of the night.

Wow, you can't buy/sell reptiles in Tazmania? I guess because it's such a small island it has a fragile ecosystem?

Probably a good idea....don't want it turning into Florida, USA

LOVE your enclosure.....come over and build me one!

John

Thanks John! Id love to build you one, but shipping would be steep lol! Yeah illegal to buy/sell, but can be collected and traded by license holders. I'm not completely against it being illegal, Id like to think that helps protect the population. I do wish I could acquire some other species but it is what it is, I'm grateful I can at least keep a few blotchies.

Im confused by what you mean there, how is it illegal to buy and sell them but legal to be collected and traded, do you mean you just need a license to be able to sell/buy/trade/collect them? like you do up here in NSW ($40-60 every 2 years to have a basic reptile license).

Illegal to buy/sell. full stop, but with a license certain reptiles can be collected from the wild and kept, or traded (not sold or brought) to other license holders. License holders can have up to 6 of 1 particular species with a permit, and a license allows a few different species here in Tassie. I can have 6 Tiger snakes and 6 Copperheads too if I want lol. Perhaps not