I wanted to get one of these guys too I will show you what i found out. Crocodile Skinks
I call these guys crocs, croc skinks or tribs. There are two species available in captivity, the red-eyed (T. gracillis) and dusty-eyed (T. novaeguinae.) Both are from New Guinea, with rest of the species complex being from the Solomon Islands.
These guys are coolest thing ever. They are mini-crocs! Seriously, people ask about aquatic lizards; well, there is no true aquatics that can be kept in the average household -- they get too big. THESE, however, are SEMI-aquatics and get about 8" or so. Seeing these guys swim are the coolest thing EVER.
Meet Lilo and Stitch or better known as Kiera and Kaedo as named by a girl, Julie. I thought the names were stupid, so I changed the names. I acquired these guys from another skink collector. I got Lilo in October of 2007, and Stitch in March or April the next year. Actually, Lilo was my first lizard. She was cool. Since these guys required cooler temperature, I kept Lilo by my window on the desk while I was studying for classes, so she kept me company for a long while.
Incidentially, she was the most expensive reptile I had too. Only paid $100 for her and the 10 gallon, however the food bill was expensive. No, it wasn't because she ate a lot. It's that she hardly ate. I had to keep superworms, mealworms, waxworms, butterworms and earthworms on hands at all time. They don't take to crickets all that well. Lilo particularly took to butterworms, while Stitch ate a lot of mealworms. Lilo have caused a lot of angst for me, but she was well worth it.
I kept these guys at humidity between 60%-100%, which in itself was kinda funny. If you drop superworms in those tanks, they "drown" even though there is no standing water nearby. It's really odd, and somewhat amusing to know that. I kept the Tribs at a temperature between 70-75F with access to a hotspot at about 85-90F. They get stressed out really easily if hotspot is over 90F or the ambient temperature is over 80F. I actually had to keep my male trib (along with salamanders, geckos and leaf frog) in my beer fridge over the summer.
If people are unable to keep the red-eyeds in the low 70s, I strongly recommend the dusty-eyed which can be kept in the upper 70s to mid-80s with a hotspot at about 92F-95F. No, I have not kept dusty-eyed before, but that what I have been told they should be kept as.
I like these guys, however they are not for everyone. You see, they are cryptic and only come out during sunrises and sundoowns. They play dead when people watch them. I remember when we did the display at Londonderry Mall, people kept asking if Lilo was dead because she would not move at all. Tribs... make horrible displays and horrible pets. They are, at best for the non-collectors, novelty. Please don't get them if you want a lizard for a pet, or looking for a lizard to put in your display tank. You will never see them; you will never get to handle these since they dart off like mad. They are NOT beginner reptiles.
In hindsight, I would either keep these guys in heavily-planted vivaria or in Rubbermaids. They don't do well in typical reptile setups in my opinion. Just feed them a lot of grubs, keep them dark and moist with access to water they can submerge in and use heat tape or heatpad instead of bulbs and you will do fine.
Well, what happened to them? Ian took care of my reptiles for awhile and she stopped eating under his care. To me, it wasn't a big deal. She would sometimes refuse to eat for a month and a half. Lilo died of something, possibly liver failure. Ian did a necropsy for me, but we froze her to peserve her so we couldn't get as much information we could. She was parasite-free and was ready to breed at the time.
For more infromation about the nercopsy, see here:
http://www.edmontonreptiles.com/forum/s ... php?t=2304 (Caution: Not for the faint of heart!)
I bashed these guys around with Kevin at the spring show and for a few months after that. I was still taking it pretty hard that Lilo passed away, so it was my coping method. Just a fact of life. If you can't deal with the fact that reptiles hide symptoms and illness really well, you shouldn't be keeping them.
Stitch was showing signs of breeding as well too. How did I know? They have this... orangish-red spot under their throat. Really unusual, for a skink, that they change colour when they are breedable. Stitch actually disappeared from my Solomon Islands biotope display tank one time just before the ERAS spring show. I found him behind the beer fridge a few days later. Well, unfortunately, I don't have him anymore.
The Tribs are up there with my favourite reptiles. I wouldn't mind keeping these again.
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Dave Parsons
This is from my other forum.
