Sexing: Night Skinks

[Nephrurus]

Greetings all,

I've taken photos of three Egernia striata and i was wondering if the Danny Brown's (and other dedicated skink keepers) of the herp world could give me some idea what sex these three skinks are likely to be. Night Skink 1 and 2 tend to get along. They don't like night skink 3, s/he has to be kept separate.

As an aside, no, at this point i don't plan to breed them (i don't know what sex they are!), and if they do breed, I won't be taking orders. Any spare animals will be advertised through the appropriate channels, as per normal... please don't PM me asking for babies!

Heres the photos.

Night Skink 1

Night Skink 2

Night Skink 3

All together.

All the best,

-H

 

[hornet]

amazing, sorry i cant help with sexing but where did you get these guys, i havent been looking but i have never seen them for sale and only know of a few keepers, certainly a very interesting animal. Got enclosure pics?

 

[Nephrurus]

I bought them from another keeper.... How else do you get animals?

Theres an article in Reptiles Australia, that as enclosure pics/designs in it.

-H

 

[hornet]

the article has drawings but no decent pics of the entire enclosure

 

[prealongus]

Skink 1 looks to be male
Skink 2 looks to be female
Skink 3 Iooks to be a male

This is based on visual differences in the thickness of the head and based on your observed behavioural characteristics

Alex

 

[Nephrurus]

Thanks Alex, there doesn't appear to be a great deal of difference there. I guess the test will be if they drop some young later on in the year

-H

 

[jordo]

Nice skinks mate
They all look a bit to similar for me to make a guess but as you probably noticed the first two skinks have some scarring on their heads which could possibly be the result of mating or territorial disputes (if not feeding collisions)???
You'd probably be your best chance at sexing them given that you can watch their behaviour etc. whereas not many other people have experience with this species.