Ditto. Alpine form of
Tiliqua nigrolutea.
Dave, what locality is this specimen from
:
Austrelaps, I reckon your spot-on with your guess of it being a Blue Mountains specimen.
I've seen roadkilled
specimens very similar to that one around Katoomba.
There are two forms of this species. The Alpine (highland) form and the Lowland form.
The Alpine form is characterised by the black peppering that you can see on the legs and head.
Also, the dorsal background colour is black or very dark brown, as it is in your specimen (which is very nice by the way).
The lowland form of the Blotched Blue-tongue has uniform pale brown or grey limbs and no peppering.
Also the blotches on the Alpine form tend to be richer in colour, sometimes pink, salmon-pink, orange and even reddish-orange.
The Alpine form is restricted to high altitude areas of the range for this species.
Re: Gender of this specimen
:
It's impossible to be 100% sure from the photograph due to the distortion caused by foreshortening.
Males have a larger, broader head (proportionately) than females.
An overhead shot would give a better idea of which sex it is.
Females also have a longer snout to vent length when compared to males of a similar size.
Also mature females (that have had mated before) have teeth marks (appearing as rough skin or pock-marked) on their shoulder region, caused by the teeth of copulating males.
Males have pock-marks on their heads from fighting with other males.
You sure are lucky having such a beaut species around your home.
