Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here looking for a reptile to keep as
Speaker 1: a pet whose heart is as true blue as its tongue.
Speaker 1: You may need to look no further than the aptly
Speaker 1: named blue tongued skink. Certain subspecies of blue tongued skinks
Speaker 1: are intelligent and personable critters that may even enjoy limited
Speaker 1: interaction with humans in the wild. Blue tongued skinks are
Speaker 1: found in the warm sandy areas and grassy savannah like
Speaker 1: regions of Australia, New Guinea, and Indonesia. They'll often dig
Speaker 1: a burrow with their snouts or legs, or find an
Speaker 1: abandoned one to live in. They look very much like
Speaker 1: snakes with stubby legs, which they used their advantage for
Speaker 1: the article. This episode is based on How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: spoke Norris and Nagelae, an educator at the Elmwood Park
Speaker 1: Zoo in Norristown, Pennsylvania. As she explained, skinks are a
Speaker 1: fairly harmless animal. They aren't poisonous, they don't have big teeth,
Speaker 1: they can't constrict their food or anything. So when there
Speaker 1: are predators like hawks around, one of their biggest defenses
Speaker 1: is to pretend to be something a little scarier. In
Speaker 1: their case, it's a snake. The skink has a type
Speaker 1: of light sensing organ called a parietal eye on the
Speaker 1: top of its head that can detect when a shadow
Speaker 1: passes over, thus sensing a predator flying by. Nagelaei said,
Speaker 1: the skink will actually tuck their tiny legs under their body.
Speaker 1: They will actively slither around, very similar to a snake.
Speaker 1: They're going to stick their tongue out and try to
Speaker 1: slither their way away from predators. The skinks also have
Speaker 1: the ability to lose their tails and regrow them. These guys,
Speaker 1: for sure have quite a few defenses against predators, and
Speaker 1: that actually includes their eponymous blue tongue. In nature, vivit
Speaker 1: colors often means something is highly toxic. Think jewel toned
Speaker 1: poisonous tree frogs, bright banded venomous snakes, or the red
Speaker 1: caps on some poisonous mushrooms. The phenomenon is called apissematism.
Speaker 1: It's basically a warning sign to potential predators. Don't even
Speaker 1: try it, I'm not worth the effort. The blue tongued
Speaker 1: skink employs the same technique, though it's an ecological fake out.
Speaker 1: That vibrant blue tongue looks gnarly, but these guys are
Speaker 1: not toxic. Blue tongued skinks can grow to between twelve
Speaker 1: and twenty four inches long that's thirty to sixty centimeters,
Speaker 1: about half of which can be tail. They have wide,
Speaker 1: flat heads and thick bodies, often patterned in silver, yellow, brown,
Speaker 1: or black in contrasting bands or irregular sections. That blue
Speaker 1: tongue is wide and sort of bluntly triangular like their heads.
Speaker 1: It's nearly impossible to tell the difference between a male
Speaker 1: and female because their reproductive organs are internal, though you
Speaker 1: can get a blood test to determine the sex. Speaking
Speaker 1: of reproduction, blue tongued skinks are ovoviviparous, which means the
Speaker 1: eggs are carried and hatched inside the female, which then
Speaker 1: birth's live offspring, usually ten to fifteen youngsters at once.
Speaker 1: Nagola said, we think it's all about energy saving. Laying
Speaker 1: eggs takes a toll on the animal's body. It's biologically
Speaker 1: expensive because they need to eat a lot of nutrients.
Speaker 1: When an animal is ovo viviparous, they retain the eggs
Speaker 1: and reabsorb a lot of the nutrients after they give birth.
Speaker 1: It eliminates a lot of the waste. It's an efficient
Speaker 1: way to give birth to their offspring. Skinks also give
Speaker 1: the illusion of looking slimy because of their sleek scales,
Speaker 1: but they're far from it. Nagolay said, whenever I'm talking
Speaker 1: about skinks to children, I always have children feel their
Speaker 1: fingernails because skinks scales feel exactly like your fingernails do,
Speaker 1: and that's because they're made out of the same stuff
Speaker 1: keratin a blue tongue. Skinks are omnivores, meaning they eat
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything, veggies and meat. Nagolay said,
Speaker 1: for our skinks here at the zoo, they get a
Speaker 1: big salad and we feed them lots of insects at crickets,
Speaker 1: and the insects are often and dusted with supplements and
Speaker 1: vitamins to make sure that they're getting all the extra
Speaker 1: nutrients they need. We also feed them something called a reptilolink.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a mix of veggies and meat for
Speaker 1: them and looks like a little sausage. Our skink really
Speaker 1: loves them. The blue tung skink at the Elmwood Park
Speaker 1: Zoo is named Sydney, and he's estimated to be seventeen
Speaker 1: years old. In captivity, blue tongued skinks will often live
Speaker 1: up to twenty years or longer. Sydney is one of
Speaker 1: the animals in the zoo's educational collection, meeting the public
Speaker 1: as one of the Ambassador animals, Nagela said, Sydney does
Speaker 1: lots of programming. He goes out to meet lots of
Speaker 1: children and adults of all ages. We do educational programming
Speaker 1: and we talk a lot about pet care and doing
Speaker 1: research about their habitat and things like that. On that note,
Speaker 1: although blue tong skinks can make great pets, they're probably
Speaker 1: not a good choice for first time pet owner. Nagolie explained,
Speaker 1: you have to pay attention to their lighting and heating requirements.
Speaker 1: If blue tunged skinks don't get the appropriate kelci and
Speaker 1: appropriate lighting which helps them metabolize the calcium, they can
Speaker 1: develop metabolic bone disease. They really need UV lighting to
Speaker 1: help them turn calcium into something usable to stay strong,
Speaker 1: or they can develop calcium deformities and disease. Also, because
Speaker 1: they grow to two feet long or half a meter,
Speaker 1: they really need to be kept in a very large terrarium.
Speaker 1: But she also said that temperamentally speaking, a blue tongue
Speaker 1: skinks are jolly good fellows. Quote. Sidney really loves to
Speaker 1: explore new places, he loves to hunt for his crickets,
Speaker 1: and although I wouldn't necessarily call it affectionate, you can
Speaker 1: build a relationship with reptiles, which I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't think of. When you think of scaly creatures,
Speaker 1: you know, your first thought is an, oh, we can
Speaker 1: be friends and hang out. But they definitely have their
Speaker 1: own unique personalities and even though some of them may
Speaker 1: not be the cuddliest, they might not curl up with you,
Speaker 1: although some definitely do. They're a real joy to work with.
Speaker 1: You can really tell that they have a certain intelligence
Speaker 1: to them. According to most experts, the best species to
Speaker 1: keep as a pet is the northern blue tongued skink.
Speaker 1: The cost of a healthy one should run between one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty and two hundred and fifty dollars, though
Speaker 1: that's just the animal itself. Other things you'd need include
Speaker 1: a sixty gallon aquarium tank, a heating and lighting element,
Speaker 1: and material for the skink to burrow into. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article The Blue tongue Skink has
Speaker 1: a heart of Gold on how stuffworks dot Com, written
Speaker 1: by Patti Resmusen. Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuffworks. Dot Com is produced by Tyler Klang.
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