occelated skinks.

[damzookeeper]

I bought a pair of occelateds at the last show. I was told the male was bullied by other males and recieved him with a few newly healing scars. Since then the scars are almost invisable and he is doing great. I was told the female was the larger of the two. They both have regrown tails so it is very hard to acurately sex them. It is possible they are a pair but the skink they told me was a male has a much smaller head than the other. The other skink looks to be male but the little one I'm not sure of. And this is the one they told me was for sure a male. Here are a couple pictures of their body.
Here is the supposed female. Looks like a male head to me but I could be wrong. I just want to be sure so I can find some more skinks later of the opposite sex.


And here is the one they told me was male.
His head seems more around the same size as his body than the larger skink. Could they both be males but the smaller one just younger? I'm at a loss. Even a fellow herper with about 20 years couldn't figure it out for me.

[Stockwell]

I've bred those guys for over a decade. It's hard to sex them, and you have to do it in breeding season,(now) by siting down in a chair and watching them atfer introducing them into a small tank, with little or no substrate. I breed them in 3 gallon tanks, with only a quarter inch of sand.
Males will fight almost to the death doing barrel rolls and leg and body biting. Legs can be broken and it ain't pretty.
Females will also fight violently but not quite as badly as males.
When pairs are together the male will chase the female, occasionally nip at the tail and back legs but will tend to go for the neck area much more, eventually biting the neck then climbing on top. Females that are being courted by males, eventually stop running. This is not the case with 2 of the same sex.

In addition to the above "in situ" sexing technique, females have slightly longer bodies and frequently have more narrow heads and are wider apart across the back legs, but this is pretty subtle.

Females that have been with males, will have bite marks on the neck. Check for that. Males do not bite each other's necks, but focus on mid body, back legs and tails are frequently removed.
Neck bite marks occur during copulations between pairs only and specimens with such neck marks are surely females.

If you have two of the same sex, the bites will be lower, mid body and tail.

I can't guarantee it but looking at your pics, the first one looks like a male and the lower pic looks female.

They're great little skinks.. I have raised numerous generations of them, with a pure diet of fancy feast cat food.

[Katt]

OOoh you are soooo lucky!!!! We totally want some of these guys!!!

[damzookeeper]

Thanks Roy, well, guess it's hard to tell. The one that I thought was female and they said was male has scars all over the body, and on the neck. But there were 2 really large ones in the mid section. These guys can really take a beating I'm thinking. He was about 1/2 way in recovery when I brought him home but now the scars are really faint. The only real difference I have noticed in them lately besides size difference is that one is really light colored (the beat up one) and the other is much more darker. They are great little buggers though and take handling really well. I had heard these guys like low fat dog food but they haven't taken any from me, just want crix and worms. lol.
Thanks for all the info. I'm hoping to get a few more of these guys in the future. They are really cool.

Thanks for the comments katt. I really like them too. Wasn't sure when I first got them but they have really grown on me.