Mystery lizard, identification help?

[Ravnos]

Friend of mine rescued this little guy the other day - heavily beat up as you can see. Well, neither of us can figure out what species he is. He looks kind of like a rainbow lizard (whiptail) - but the belly scales are all wrong, basic coloration is wrong, and head shape is more like a sandfish skink but he's too big to be a sandfish and sandfish are banded, not striped. So we're kind of stumped... anyone else have an ideas?






Rav
[addsig]

[GizmO]

well, to me it definalty looks like some kind of skink but, not sure exactly what kind. When looking at the first pics I was thinking some kind of lined skink but, when ya see all the markings on the back, I don't think that is right.
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[telefrag]

I thought it looked like a Gerrhosaurus sp.

poor thing.
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[herpkingdom]

OK, i came up with two others that closely resemble this lizard. Both are subspecies of the Mole SKink and the only way to actually tell the two apart are by the taiul color and being that this guy is missing his tail it is hard to get the correct ssp.

So it might be either the
Peninsula Mole Skink or a
Cedar Key Mole Skink.

Ah, I editted out my first guess which was totally wrong [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]


_________________
Jim Dixon

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[BWSmith]

Sandfish
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[Ravnos]

Dunno... doesn't look quite like either of those skinks.

I refuse to agree to sandfish until someone shows me a pic of a sandfish that looks like him, I keep sandfish, I've seen literally hundreds... I went digging for pictures of other species of sandfish and have found nothing that looks even remotely like him. The general head structure is correct, but the rest of him isn't.

Rav
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[eddie]

I did some searching but only came up with what I feared the most.....

Blue tailed skinks DO exist!

blue tailed skink.
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[herpkingdom]

OK, try this....

Another species of Sandfish

Scincus mitranus

_________________
Jim Dixon

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[Ravnos]

Close, but still no cigar. If I'm not mistaken, S. mitranus is pretty hard to come by in the pet trade because it is a protected species in its home range. Quite often normal egyptian sandfish skinks will show up with that species name labelled on them so importers can milk extra money out of unknowning buyers. Anyway... thats not the same as my mystery lizard. [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

Rav
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[telefrag]

It really really really really looks like a species of plated lizards from S. Africa, if anyone has a field guide to the reptiles of south africa, they will see a Gerrhosaurus that looks like much like it, minus the damage.


Here is a similiar pic.

[eddie]

Those don't look to have the blue face and the stripes aren't quite as wide....a little sharper in the definition also.

Whats the story on the damage, Rav?
Burn, fungal infection gone nuts?
Heaven forbid.. owner abusing it?

[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[Ravnos]

I honestly have no idea what the story is. He was dumped at a local pet store. No comments made, no questions asked. It looks like a fungal or bacterial infection of some sort, not much like a burn (god knows, I've seen enough of those on iguanas). He's been getting soaked in novalsan which has done wonders for his skin tone and hydration. Of course, without finding out what kind of lizard he is - we don't know whether to set him up desert, or humid, or what. [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] So we go with an in between setup, uberUV and hope for the best.

Rav
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[telefrag]

Well, Eddie, there are several species of Gerrhosaurus, and I was implying that the lizard in question belonged to the genus, not the exact species I posted the pic of.

Also, severe trauma to an animal can cause color anomolies.

I doubt the blue is normally there, and may be the result of some other type of environmental variable.

But there IS a species of plated lizard with blue paretial scales and some blue frontal scales.
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters

[Ravnos]

Kudos goes to telefrag, it -is- a plated lizard. Its called Peter's Plated Lizard, it is from Madagascar. Not seen very often at all in the herp trade, but they are out there. The species is Trachyloptychus petersi. Good luck in finding any info on it outside of a couple of books that specialize in madagasy animals though. They live in sand dunes, and behave much like sandfish but are entirely unrelated. [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Rav
[addsig]

	Geek Auto Linker or Gallon Geek Auto Linker Gallon - United States liquid unit equal to 4 quarts or 3.785 liters