I can't remember if I mentioned that I got 2 new female PTS this summer. I've finally taken a picture of them. A link is provided below. Both animals came to me by way of the Baltimore Zoo when they closed their reptile house.
The darker skink, Olive, was born in April of 2000. The younger one I've yet to receive the paperwork for, but I believe she's around one or 2 years old. She is currently nameless, but I'm still thinking hard.
If you look through the photo album you will see pics of my other two skinks, Ripper (male) and King (female). I think that once all of the skinks are living in the same state again I will put Olive and Ripper together and Nameless and King together. King and Nameless will eventually be joined by a new male that shares their coloration and is about the same size as Nameless. I'm mostly going based on color and morphology, but Olive and Ripper share a very distinctive look (dark coloration and that flattened back) that I don't see very frequently, while the others have the more "classic" PTS look.
I'm assuming that to some extent similarities in appearance imply that they come from the same or nearby populations. I'd like to limit muddying the genetic waters as much as possible. Of course, this is fairly impossible to do with any certainty given the lack of locale-specific information for captive animals. But we do the best we can, no?
-M
Link
