Pink tongue again

For the past week we have been seeing the Pink Tongue Skink in a position just above where we first had a sighting in Oct.2011. Each day as the day warms up it emerges from the space between the base of a wall and a wooden screen, but apart from one occasion, just the head is in view as it is very wary and if approached quickly withdraws.

It spends a lot of time in this spot, so I assume that it is foraging and hunting at night after warming up all day.

Pink tongue hidden

A change in the weather around midday brought a thunderstorm and put an end to the work that I was going to do outside, so instead I was working undercover on the verandah. Di came to have a look at my progress and chanced to look over the verandah rail and directly below and spotted what she initially thought was a sloughed snake skin but then realised was a live skink. Checking it out, I thought it was a young Blue-tongued Lizard and went to get the camera for a photo or two. I took a couple from the verandah, directly above the lizard, just to be sure I had a record in case it disappeared before I could get a shot from a better position. It was in a spot where I only had one other vantage point and fortunately it stayed for a couple more photos. By now I was thinking that it was possibly another species as it seemed too long and slender to be a Blue Tongue. Checking my lizard reference I was very pleased to find that we had a Pink-tongued Skink or Lizard Cyclodomorphus gerrardii, a first sighting for us and another reptile to add to the list for our property.

 

Not as common as its Blue-tongue relative, it is more slender with a slightly prehensile tail and grows to about 30cm, which was the size of this one. They are found from The Cape York Peninsular down the east coast to just north of Sydney, in bushland bordering rainforest and wet eucalypt forest. Like the Blue-tongue they are a positive critter to have around your garden, as snails and slugs are part of their diet. It is best not to handle these lizards as they have a very strong bite that can be very painful, as people also often find when they handle Blue-tongues.