A really touching video must watch

[chameleon7]

just saw this video on youtube showing a bobtail mourning its dead mate
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZvMhjRRzWI ), bobtail lizards are monogomous they seek out the same partner every year, to me it just shows that reptiles arent the emotionless prehistoric animals every one makes them out to be!

 

[label]

A few months ago Radio National here in Australia did a piece on the now 35 year long study on shinglebacks, led by Prof. Michael Bull, who sadly died last year: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-16/life-death-and-grief-of-the-sleepy-lizard/8442252 . They have a much more complex life than people generally think of when they think of reptiles. I just got a pair last week, who I hope have bonded. They are really placid and move so slowly that they almost seem like animated geology than animals. I'm hoping mine will settle in well. Given that I'm in my 60s, buying animals with 50 year lifespans may have been a bit optimistic!

 

[chameleon7]

fascinating creatures indeed! good luck with your bobtials i hope to get one soon :mrgreen:

 

[kingofnobbys]

I believe that clip from comes from an Attenborough Doco ....

They'll stay with the corpse of their mate until starvation force them to leave it.... very otherwise they mate for life and return to reunite with their mate every year.

This seems a common skink attribute , I've had the same alpha male water skink coming here for nearly a decade , and the same females are always about in my yard and under the house and in the shed.
Little known by even reptile enthusiasts, skinks are great moms , they guard their babies for a long time. They also accept and share guard duty of related (sisters', auti's and cousin's, and daughter's) offspring, and will chase away offspring from unrelated females.

 

[chameleon7]

amazing animals really, i always used to collect wild skinks when i was little and i did see a david attenborough episode where this little skink mum was curled up with her babies in a little burrow warming them up, definitely have a new found passion for skinks, they really seem to range in behavior from species to species the big kink skinks are huge but really skittish and they bite just like a blue tongue!

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Oh man, that is so sad, I had no idea.

Tracie