Can you help confirm if Irian Jaya or not?

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SammiShySkink
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Can you help confirm if Irian Jaya or not?

Postby SammiShySkink » Thu Oct 29, 2020 9:02 am

Hi All,

I bought my first BTS five weeks ago from East Bay Vivarium (Berkeley, CA US). They said s/he is a captive bred Irian Jaya, about 4-5 months old (at the time of purchase).

I will attach a couple pics. East Bay Vivarium is a reputable reptile store/breeders, in business since 1970 so I would like to hope they are honest. I was planning to purchase a Northern since it sound like a good subspecies for me to start with but EBV had 3 Irian Jaya babies and I ended up deciding on this one. I've read that it's not as common to find CB Irian Jayas so I was hoping to get a second opinion on whether or not s/he is Irian Jaya or not.

Although we have a healthy, beautiful corn snake from EBV and they have a good rep, I feel slightly unsure about the BTS identification/CB status for a couple reasons:
1. S/he had mites. I didn't noticed them until about 3 weeks after bringing her home. I had been hand feeding her but not handling her for the first 2 weeks. I was using Lugarti Reptile Bedding, which I didn't bake prior to use. Being a new owner I didn't realize substrate could potentially harbor mites. The bedding was bought from another reptile store in Northern CA and the bags had tore open a bit during shipping so not packaged air tight which I guess could have allowed mites to transfer (??). So either she came home with them or I put her in substrate that was harboring them. She's fine now, I was able to treat her just with daily baths and tank cleaning and keeping her on paper towels until the mites were gone.

2. She still hides most of the day and doesn't want to be handled. She is getting less huffy puffy about being held but now will run and hide if she thinks I'm going to handle her. She knows when I have food and I when I don't! The more I am reading the more I think she is just young and skittish still but was feeling discouraged at first and worried I had a wild caught mite ridden skink!

I appreciate your help with identifying her!


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mb606587
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Re: Can you help confirm if Irian Jaya or not?

Postby mb606587 » Thu Oct 29, 2020 9:52 pm

Unfortunately, that is an imported Halmahera skink. Halmahera skinks generally need higher humidity levels than Irian Jayas.
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Truebie
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Re: Can you help confirm if Irian Jaya or not?

Postby Truebie » Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:00 am

mb606587 wrote:Unfortunately, that is an imported Halmahera skink. Halmahera skinks generally need higher humidity levels than Irian Jayas.

May I know how you can tell?
I still have difficulties telling these gigas species apart
especailly since they have color variation.

Even the examples of a species shown in the species description differs from one another
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Re: Can you help confirm if Irian Jaya or not?

Postby mb606587 » Tue Nov 24, 2020 6:45 pm

It can be tricky at times. In this case, the mostly black and lightly checkered belly is commonly associated with Halmaheras. Furthermore, the predominately black front limbs are mostly associated with Indonesian subspecies skinks and the single prominent vertical stripe on the neck is typically only found on Merauke and Halmahera skinks. Halmaheras will also have fairly thin uniform banding down the body, much like Meraukes, but differ in that the banding becomes irregular and thicker further down the tip of the tail.

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