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 […]