Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, it's completely my fault for leaving my herps unattended. I went to clean the cage so I put all herps in one holding 150 gallon breeder tank temporarily. I normally watch and supervise to see who is becoming aggressive. Well, the phone rang so I answer it, it was my friend, so we started talking for quite awhile. Well, Will, my sister's boyfriend, came to cut the tree branches in the back yard and he noticed my blue tongue skink attacking my 24 inch female bearded dragon. He immediately separated them and called my cellphone. He said "the lizards are fighting you better come out here quick"! I came out and he was holding the blue tongue skink by the tail because he was the aggressor. He was trying to go over to my bearded dragon and bite her. He told me that blue tongue skink kept on biting her until she could stand it no more and so the bearded dragon fought back with a vengeance. He said the blue tongue skink got bit my bearded dragon because it was biting my bearded dragon and then it ran away after being bitten, and then kept coming back and tried to pick a fight with her. I don't know if blue tongue skinks have really sharp teeth or not, but my bearded dragon didn't suffer any damage to her body, but my blue tongue skink suffer some laceration on the tip of his mouth from the bite that my bearded dragon gave him as she was defending herself. My sister's boyfriend said my bearded dragon was pretty tough and manage to overpower the skink several time. So the aggressor ended up more hurt. I took him to see a vet and she gave me something to put on his wound, but there was nothing serious. Luckily Will found them in time; otherwise, my bearded dragon would have torn that skink apart. Considering my female bearded dragon is very placid, she defended herself with ferocity. I don't know how she did it, but that skink got beat up really bad. AFter we seperated them Will grabbed the bearded dragon to check on her and she was calm as calm can be like nothing had happened. I still can't believe she beat up that skink really bad. She was quite strong, Will told me. The skink couldn't overpower her. Lesson learn...never leave your herp attended together or mix species.

Yeah from my understanding the skinks like to be housed alone and will attack their own kind if housed together for the most part. Im sure you had no problem putting them together for a few mins becuase they are not used to the new inviroment and just kinda hung out and then bam its back to their home before they knew it. I would suggest just cleaning one cage at a time. That way your extra cage can hold the one and then you can switch between the two. I was not suporised that the beardie handled the skink but really found that the beardie didn't attack it right away. They seem to have big problems with snakes and I have seen several just start attacking right away when a snake is in site since the skinks look a lot like a snake that suprised me. Sounds like everything is good to go now though.

You were lucky. Blue tongue skinks have very powerful bites..but not very big teeth. I would get your bearded dragon checked anyway. Even if the skin isn't broken, bones could be damaged and muscles certainly crushed.

BTS's don't like sharing cages at all, they can do quite a bit of damage to each other even when its a male/female pairing.

Definitely was a bad idea to put a bearded dragon and a blue tongue skink into a cage together, even temporary. Leaving them alone outside (which is how it sounds) wasn't a good idea either, unless the cage was securely covered. Could have just as easily lost one or both to a passing bird or cat.
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PHLdyPayne