Just wondered how common this behavior is. My sheen skink will absolutely shake the HELL out of any prey iten that gives her any resistance. With large roaches, in fact, she'll repeatedly grab it by the wings, shake until the wing comes off, grab another wing, and repeat, until there are no wings left. Until recently, I assumed that she did that because she didn't like eating wing chiton, but I've also seen her snap nightcrawlers around to get some of the fight out of them, and last Sunday I gave her pinkies for the first time. The first one, she simply bit several times until she managed to kill it. The second time, she'd figured out that the previous technique was more trouble than she felt like, so she grabbed it by the head and shook side to side about ten times in an wide, lightning-fast blur. Her neck could apparently handle that with no trouble. The pinkie, on the other hand, was dead in about a second and a half. Do any other skinks do this?
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0.1 2006 Western Hognose (Bebe)
0.1 age unknown Cane Toad (Hengo)
0.1 2005 White-Banded Sheen Skink (Minerva)
1.0 2006 Northern Diamondback Terrapin (Queequeg)
1.0 2006 Madagascan Speckled "Hognose" (Sigmund)
1.0 2008 Bullsnake (Winkle)
1.2 2008 Eastern Collared Lizards (Pancho, Lupe, and Chica)
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Thrashing prey
Replies (2)
Blue Tongue skinks do this all the time. Its a bit frustrating when mine grab their feed bowl (I use plastic low sided bowls as I didn't want them breaking their teeth on ceramic) and end up dumping half the contents on their heads.
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PHLdyPayne
Hi JackAsp, I have a Eugongylus albofasciolatus too. He does not shake his food, but I noticed that he does have a higher prey drive than my Schneider's skinks or my Egernia striolata. He goes after the superworms vigorously and clamps down with a vengeance when he eats them. My Schneider's are more delicate and shake the prey lightly just to stun them a little to subdue the squirming. Also when I'm feeding them by hand if the Schneiders accidently bite me it is very light, but the sheen skink clamps hard.
