Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

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Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 4:45 am

This topic has rather bothered me.. well.. because we just don't know!

Over the last couple of months, I have been wanting to learn more and more about this locale, and I finally received one, although not a good representation, he has the looks of it.

When you see a skink that has completely black feet, black stripe down the neck, black banding, tail gradually turning black, what do you think of..? A Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink. But why do they have that name? Why would that have that name if they are found outside of North Maluku?

I was reading up on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=22347

While on the thread it shows the ranges of the t. g. gigas, t. g. evanescens, t. g. keyensis.
Image

You can see the t. g. gigas is found in very different places, but mainly focused on the west part of the island- or as I call "mainland", which where they live. The Northern part of North Maluku is shaded. There is where we would think our "Halmahera Island" Blue-Tongued Skink would be found... but why..?

I have heard from people from that land say that they were first found on the island, and soon made there way to Indonesia/PNG. No one can know for sure, which is another thing that bothers me.

Why would we call them a Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink when other different looking skinks are found there, such as this one:
Image
..which just looks like a typical Merauke..

..and this one, which looks like a so called "Halmahera Island" Blue-Tongued Skink, found in PNG:
Image

My person opinion is that they are all came from a group of skinks from the island somehow.. maybe escaped.. same opinion as the people from that land.. but no one knows for sure!

When you get a skink that looks like a Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink, how would you really know if it truly came out of Halmahera Island.. or North Maluku? You won't!

We know that the Axanthic Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink are actually found on the island, I know people that had them collected from the island. But can they be found on the main island?? I know I have seen some Silver-ish looking Meraukes, but no way of saying where is was collected! It could be a Axanthic form of the picture posted of a Merauke-looking skink found on the island.

I was thinking about the more west the Indonesians go, the more darker, but that skink found in PNG shuts that door!

---

Another thing, the so called "Halmahera Island" Blue-Tongued Skink was clumped up as just a locale of the Indonesian, right? But take a look at this:
Image
..and then look at this.
Image

Image

Scalation is not the same, same with this skink and all the rest:
Image

Why would they use scale differences between a Merauke and a Indonesian, when the so called "Halmahera Island" locale of an Indonesian doesn't even have the same scalation?? The Halmahera Blue-Tongued Skink has 3 scales, and the Indonesian has only 2.

Maybe because it is a different species. Thanks for viewing! I hope I opened your minds!

All photo credit goes to their owner:
First photo: Jeff Greene
Second photo: Richard C.
Third photo: Mark O' Shea
Forth photo: Jeff Greene
Fifth photo: Underground Reptiles
Sixth photo: Jeff Greene and Underground Reptiles
Seventh photo: Jeff Greene and http://images.google.com/
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby gehtan » Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:48 am

Nice thread bro, I want to know more about this elusive BTS too. :)
Hi call me Geh. :)
I own a Halmahera-Indo Blue tongue skink.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Richard.C » Sat Aug 03, 2013 4:08 pm

they use scale difference between indos and meraukes to show difference between the subspecies,reading this your now saying that halmahera island blueys are meraukes

u cant look at colors or what one looks like and pin a marker to a map saying it comes from here just off looks

also animals collected from here there and everywhere are kept in mass groups at exporters,not state of the art facilities,some if timing is right likely breed,so if babies are imported who knows what they are

the folk whom split subspecies go there and base it off wild specimens,not captives with zero background history to base off,they go check animals from different locales over a large area of the ranges and its not just accepted from one person just thinking it,it has to be accepted by others

your now saying ones from there dont look typical halmahera and ones from not there do look like typical halmaheras,based off the look of what captivity says is a typical halmahera

that should tell you that u cant call them halmahera blueys off looks as its not restricted to halmahera let alone all halmahera animals having that look

do your so called indo friends have wild photos of indos? actually taken from these locations
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Jeff » Sat Aug 03, 2013 4:15 pm

Basically, you can't use one skink of unknown origin to represent all skinks from Halamahera. Also, you need to not post copyrighted pictures without crediting where they came from.
6.10.9 T. s. intermedia
2.2.7 T. s. scincoides
1.2.1 T. nigrolutea
2.2.0 T. r. rugosa
1.2.3 T.g. keyensis
2.0.5 T.s. chimaera
0.0.0. T. occipitalis
0.0.0. T. multifasciata
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby xxmonitorlizardxx » Sat Aug 03, 2013 6:42 pm

Dakota Nivens wrote:
When you see a skink that has completely black feet, black stripe down the neck, black banding, tail gradually turning black, what do you think of..? A Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink. /

I think of an Indonesian. Not necessarily Halmahera.
Dakota Nivens wrote: Why would we call them a Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink when other different looking skinks are found there, such as this one:
Image
..which just looks like a typical Merauke..

Why would we call Indonesians Indonesians if other skinks live there?
Why would we call Meraukes Meraukes if they live in places other than Merauke.
Why would we call Virginia Opossums Virginia Opossums if they are found in places other than Virginia?
The Halmahera Indonesian is called so because skinks that look like that are predominately(if not only) found on those/that island.

Dakota Nivens wrote:
..and this one, which looks like a so called "Halmahera Island" Blue-Tongued Skink, found in PNG:
Image

That’s not a Halmahera. It’s a normal looking Indonesian.

Dakota Nivens wrote:We know that the Axanthic Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink are actually found on the island, I know people that had them collected from the island. But can they be found on the main island?? I know I have seen some Silver-ish looking Meraukes, but no way of saying where is was collected! It could be a Axanthic form of the picture posted of a Merauke-looking skink found on the island.

I have shown you pictures of Axanthic Indonesians that were not found on Halmahera. Shoot I have a picture of an Axanthic Kei. That definitely wasn’t found on Halmahera.


Dakota Nivens wrote:
I was thinking about the more west the Indonesians go, the more darker, but that skink found in PNG shuts that door! /

You cannot base things off of one animal.


If you look at my older posts you will find lots of topics I have made similar to this.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 6:52 pm

No, Meraukes have 4 scales, and the Indonesians have 2.. while the Halmahera Islands have 3. At first I was thinking maybe they were more closely related to the Merauke.. but seems like, to me, they are related to them just as much as the Indonesians.

Maybe that's how we can tell the difference between a true North Maluku resident and one found in Papua? :noknow: There is always a chance.

On the gigas thread, Jeff mentioned the true identification of them is more work than just going by patterns. Going bu scales would work better.

Maybe they are a Merauke x Indonesian mix that evolved as time went by, like the IJ?
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Richard.C » Sat Aug 03, 2013 6:56 pm

dakota,in the bluey bible in the identification section,the scale counts you refer to in those pics above state that in indos its less then 5 scales,in keis and meraukes its 5 scales,theres more diagnostic features to differentiating the subspecies as well

actually done with locale specific animals,not pet trade animals,animals that are an accurate representative from there locale

so indo less than 5 scales,merauke and kei islands both 5 scales,hence the indo and the maybe halmahera or maybe not both have less than 5,hence are indos going off that one diagnostic feature,which i may add is based of reliable/accurate locality data from various localities with in the gigas range
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Richard.C » Sat Aug 03, 2013 7:03 pm

also they are all subspecies of gigas,so yes they are related,not different species of tiliqua,they are all a gigas subspecies,gigas was named first so after that is the subspecies names

the bluey bible is a great source of all this info,highly reccomend it
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 7:09 pm

I'm getting it for my birthday. :edward:

ML - How come ever Halmahera-looking skink that comes on here, you say it is a Halmahera Indonesian? On facebook, you even corrected Mel for saying a typical Indonesian was a Halmahera, and you told her no.. it wasn't. How would go as far as correcting someone when we dont even know ourselves.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby xxmonitorlizardxx » Sat Aug 03, 2013 7:35 pm

ML - How come ever Halmahera-looking skink that comes on here, you say it is a Halmahera Indonesian

Because it looks like a Halmahera. If it didn't look like one, I wouldn't.

On facebook, you even corrected Mel for saying a typical Indonesian was a Halmahera, and you told her no..

No, Mel said it was a Halmahera, I said it wasn't:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

How would go as far as correcting someone when we dont even know ourselves.

Then we wouldn't know what any skink on this forum is. Because we did not take them from the wild, we bought them and based on how they looked, classified them.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:15 pm

You say it looks like a Halmahera type, but yet some that look exactly like them are collected outside of North Maluku, and other different looking locales are found on the island, as well.

That's exactly what I said. :kw:

But what about the skinks collected there that don't look like a typical Halmahera locale? Is it still a Halmahera locale? :nod:
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby xxmonitorlizardxx » Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:39 pm

Dakota Nivens wrote:You say it looks like a Halmahera type, but yet some that look exactly like them are collected outside of North Maluku, and other different looking locales are found on the island, as well.

What's wrong with finding Halmahera's outside of Halmahera?
We find Virginia Opossums outside of Virginia.

That's exactly what I said. :kw:

Sorry, the way you wrote it, I couldn't tell who was saying what.

Dakota Nivens wrote:But would about the skinks collected there that don't look like a typical Halmahera locale? Is it still a Halmahera locale? :nod:

A Halmahera Indonesian Blue Tongue Skink is an Indonesian with a certain look. This isn't a legitimate scientific name given to them. It's just a name importers gave certain animals with a specific look, and it stuck. Skinks found on Halmahera that don't look like Halmahera Indonesian Blue Tongue Skinks would not be Halmahera Indonesian Blue Tongue Skinks. They would just be Indonesians or Meraukes or whatever they are.

Again, this is like saying all Blue Tongue Skinks from Indonesia, are Indonesian Blue Tonuge Skinks(Tiliqua Gigas Gigas), or all skinks from Merauke are Meraukes. Yes they are from there, but their origin does not dictate their taxonomy.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:45 pm

What you are saying is what I have trying to tell Richard for a while. I completely agree what you are trying to put through. But a logical question is that what about the ones that lookk exactly like them found outside of the island? It's a not a species. A specific locale is based on where is from, with different looks.

They've been trying to screw in my head, that a Halmahera Island Blue-Tongued Skink found outside North Maluku is not a Halmahera Island. It is just a typical Indonesian.

I completely agree with you, ML.. I'm just trying to look on both sides of the debate.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby xxmonitorlizardxx » Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:49 pm

Where is North Maluku?
Where are the pictures of the North Maluku skinks?
What proof do we have they they are from North Maluku?
How reputable is the source that you're getting your information from?
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:58 pm

North Maluku is Halmahera.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby xxmonitorlizardxx » Sat Aug 03, 2013 9:13 pm

Oh, than where are the pictures of these skinks that look like Halmahera's that aren't from Halmahera's?
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 9:14 pm

If I am studying right, according to the map, they aren't even found on the peninsula, which is Halmahera.. I think they just use Halmahera as the whole island, in which North Maluku is the whole island, and surround islands.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 9:15 pm

xxmonitorlizardxx wrote:Oh, than where are the pictures of these skinks that look like Halmahera's that aren't from Halmahera's?

2nd photo Richard posted from the bluey bible.
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby xxmonitorlizardxx » Sat Aug 03, 2013 9:19 pm

Where did he post it?
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Re: Truth about the Halmahera Island locale

Postby Dakota » Sat Aug 03, 2013 9:21 pm

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