Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, I am hoping that someone will be able to help me, I bought this skink ( I call him Loki) about a week ago and I can not find, for the life of me, what kind of skink he is. Also I am having a hard time with him, he runs when we try to pick him up and he's bitten a few of us already, does anyone know howI can calm him? It's heart breaking not being able to just pick him up whenever I'd like and hold him. Please help! (sorry that the picture is so fuzzy, it's a cell phone picture. He's an olive green color on his back that shines almost rainbow in the light. His stomach is white, his sides are orange-ish/brown and white spotted)

Hard to tell what kind of skink it is as half the body is covered and blurry. Maybe a berber skink. I suggest contacting the place or person you bought the skink from and asking what kind it is.

As for taming, some skinks just don't like being handled at all, though in time most will calm down in time. (it can be months or more depending on the normal flightiness of the species). First though, you want to know what kind of skink you have, so you can set up the correct husbandry for it.
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PHLdyPayne

It's a red sided skink, Mabuya perrotetti. Native to central and west Africa. They are nice animals; I had a few before. Get to a decent size--a good 14 inches. like warm temps. not too cold tolerant. Prone to being nervous, at least mine were.

The berber skink looks close but not quite, the red sided looks closer but his sides are more of the color of the sauce in chef boyardee canned pasta afrter most of it is gone and the bowl is covered in the sauce. (oddly spacific huh? lol) I wonder if that may be because he's young, he's only about 6 inches or so long. I would get a better picture but he won't hold still long enough to do so, I'm not sure if it helps but he's got a purple tongue.

There is always some color variations between individuals of a species. I am not familiar with red sided (hence why I didn't recognize yours as one). Though it does seem many skink species show much brighter colors during mating season, especially males. Females don't tend to be as colorful in some species...don't know if this is the same with the red sided skinks.
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PHLdyPayne

Males are usually the more colorful sex in red sideds.