Blue Tongue Skink

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Blue Tongue Skink

Scientific Name

  • The scientific name of the Blue Tongue Skink is Tiligua Scincoides

Description

  • This is a large lizard with a long body, large head, and small legs with delicate toes.
  • The tail is shorter than the body and generally tapers to a point.
  • The color consists of a pattern of dark brown bars on a light brown or cream background; orange bars alternate with brown on the sides.
  • They have faint eye stripes and a cobalt-blue tongue.
  • Scales are shiny, overlapping, and contain small plates of bone.
  • Eardrums are sunken into cavities on the sides of the head.
  • Skin is shed in pieces.
  • They can shed their tail to escape predators and has a moveable and transparent lower eyelid to protect their eyes from dust and still see.
  • They might ingest small stones to help digest their food.

Distribution

  • They are found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea.

Breeding

  • Northern blue tongues are among the easiest and most predictable breeders of the common blue tongues.
  • Unfortunately, there is no reliable method to sex juveniles.
  • If your goal is to breed, you must either purchase proven adults or raise up juveniles until they can be sexed.
  • One reliable method of sexing adults is to house each blue tongue separately in a container void of the substrate. The males will regularly shed small clear seminal plugs.

Nesting

  • They do not lay eggs but give birth to live young lizards.
  • A female will only produce around 5-15 young lizards a year.

Size

  • Adult: 17 to 24 inches.

Life Span

  • 18 to 20 years.

Food and Feeding

  • These lizards are omnivorous, eating a variety of insects, snails, carrion, flowers and fruits.
  • The reptiles are not very agile, and the animals they eat are mostly slow-moving.
  • Their teeth are large, and they have strong jaw muscles, so they can crush snails and beetles.

Where Do Blue Tongue Skinks Live?

  • They live principally in open country with lots of ground cover, such as tussocky grasses or leaf litter.
  • The Northern Blue Tongue lives in tropical/savannah woodland in the northern part of West Australia.