First batch of babies caught me by surprise because it was none of the gravid females that seemed most primed. The mother, Elektra, is a young 3-year old that was produced by a breeder back East and is reputedly of Turner – White & Sunset stock. These are ‘lineage’ terms […]
How do you know when a female is gravid? The females shown in the photos below all bred from February 1st to February 11th, 2021. By May 10th, approximately 90 to 100 days have passed from the breeding season, and the females are in the last stages of pregnancy. […]
In lizards and snakes the males have two penises, which are known as hemipenes. (Turtles and tortoises have lost the plot and only have one — like the monkeys and naked apes and such.) The Squamata, the order comprising snakes, lizards and amphisbaenians, wisely keep their hemipenes in an internal […]
I purchased a Northern Blue-tongue skink that was captive born sometime in the summer of 2018. The skink was around 6-months when I acquired it, and clearly displayed serious health issues. The lizard had been raised by an inexperienced keeper who knew little about blue-tongue skinks, and had only cared […]
One of my young Northern blue-tongues deposited an interesting gauzy material in its water bowl. When I first saw it I thought it might be a sperm plug. However, it doesn’t look like tubules of coagulated sperm, which are normally viscous and opaque. It looks more like a slough […]
Is spermatozoa retention in Tiliqua for long periods a possible reproductive strategy? For captive blue-tongue skink breeding projects, and just a general understanding of Tiliqua reproduction in the wild, it would be important to discover if viable spermatozoa could be carried across breeding seasons. I’m not aware of any examples […]
I’d like to write a testimonial to my late friend, the German herpetologist Ludwig Trutnau. Ludwig published around a dozen books on lizards, snakes and crocodilians. Several of his books are only available in German, but several have been translated successfully into English. This is just a placeholder … full […]