Pacific blue tailed skink (Emoia cyanurum)
Distribution:
The Pacific blue tailed skink can be found in eastern Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji. Predominantly, the Pacific blue tailed skink lives in forests, but he also visited the gardens and plantations and appreciates the open areas because of the many hiding places and insects. The Pacific blue tailed skink is under pressure, like other lizards and snakes that prey on the Pacific blue tailed skink due to the introduced species. The species is diurnal and oviparous. The clutch consists of two eggs.
Behavior:
The Pacific blue tailed skink is active during daylight hours to search for food, but he behaves quite noisily on the floor. In order to protect themselves from birds and other predators, he moves very nimble in the vegetation. In most areas of the Pacific blue tailed skink is displaced on the islands of Guam and Cocos from the other kind Carlia fusca. The Pacific blue tailed skink is also still to be found on the following islands of Rota, Aguijan, Tinian, Saipan, Alamagan, Agrihan and Asuncion. Also on these islands the native Pacific blue tailed skink is displaced by the introduced species Carlia fusca and imported brown tree snake.
Short description:
The Pacific blue tailed skink reaches a head-body length of about 48mm and a tail length of about 64mm . In general, females are smaller than males. Furthermore, the males have a wider and longer head and longer hind limbs than females. Despite this designation have only the young and the females on a striking blue tail . In addition, the adolescents and young adults also have three prominent yellow stripes that are separated by a brown and black color. With age, these stripes fade , making it difficult to Pacific blue tailed skink to distinguish the type Carlia fusca . For many adults, only a trace of the dorsolateral stripes can be seen on the head and neck. Furthermore , the Pacific blue tailed skink on a great similarity with the type Emoia impar , in which the bright stripes do not disappear with age. The Pacific blue tailed skink show up on the bottom of the fourth toe 31 to 43 curved blades , while in the type Emoia impar the slats on the underside of the fourth toe much smaller and more numerous than 50 (usually 65 to 70 fins) are provided.
Furthermore, the dorsolateral stripes of the latter type tend to be wider and white colored head. Also there is a visible pineal spot in the back of the eye . Other distinguishing features of the Pacific blue tailed skink are the 30 to 32 scale rows arranged in the middle of the body as well as 54 to 60 scale rows between the parietal lobe and the base of the tail . The Pacific blue tailed skink is able to throw off his tail at a certain breaking point, where the breaking point is in the middle of some basal caudal vertebrae . He is therefore capable of autotomy . When the tail dropped due to an attack of a predator , the wound healed very quickly and it starts a new tail to grow. However, the tail does not grow after in its full glory . In general, the regenerated tail reaches barely half the length of the original tail.
Lifestyle, attitude and breeding:
The Pacific blue tailed skink feeds mainly on insects (Insecta) and their larvae, as well as from other arthropods (Arthropoda) as lt isopods (Isopoda), spiders (Arachnida) and millipedes (Myriapoda). Also contains snails (Gastropoda) and earthworms (Lumbricidae) are not scorned. Among the insects are especially beetles (Coleoptera), Orthoptera (Orthoptera) and crickets (Gryllus) at a premium. Here and there also ripe fruits are eaten.
During the mating season occurs partly to rank battles over mating rights with the females among the males. Only the winner of a fight has a right to the pairing. In copulation, the male rises to the back of the female and bites into her neck. He pushes her tail aside and brings his cloaca to the female. This copulation may take several minutes. After successful mating, the female lays two eggs in a tree cavity or into a rotting tree stump. The egg shells have a whitish color, and a length of about 20.0 mm. The head-body length is about 33.0 to 39.0 millimeters in newly hatched young.