He's looking to trade for a nice Gibson

[uwe]

Finally a reptile thread, I slither with the orgasmic sensation of it, danke for ze porn pics!!!

I actually have three blue tongue skinks in my terrarium and until recently a spike tail monitor lizard as well which, alas!, is now in the eternal cricket and locust hunting grounds (that said, it also had a taste for my - ouch! - finger). It was 15 years old/ancient when I put it into the freezer for an hour - as monitors do when "it's time for them", they just stop eating and drinking and severely dehydrate, it hadn't eaten for months already (I knew it was coming, had seen it happen before), so I made it quicker for it once it couldn't even cling to a piece of bark anymore and insects became "interested". Before you accuse me of typical German cruelty, temperatures below zero put tropical reptiles to death/terminal sleep gently, they just shut their systems down quickly.

So now the terrarium (2 meters wide, 80 cms deep and about 1.60 meters high) houses just the blue tongue lizards, two African skink type lizards, two iguanas (one green, one black) plus about a dozen Tokeh geckos which you basically only see at night when they clean up the day's leftovers. I'd like to find another monitor (or a pair), but they are harder and harder to get in Germany due to their protected status.

[veebass]

@uwe . All the Australian reptiles are protected as I understand it. A strange situation, given many are very common.
The Blue Tongues make lovely pets and become quite placid when they get used to being handled. We don't actually see them on my property, although they are in the area. We mainly have Pink Tongues, which are feisty little guys.
On our property we have quite a selection of larger lizards-  Land Mullets, a variety of types of Water Skinks, Pink Tongues, three native species of Gecko (plus the introduced Asiatic one), Eastern Water Dragons, Angle Headed Dragons, Bearded Dragons and Lace Monitors. The Frill Necked Lizard comes this far south (in fact a little further south than right here), but I haven't seen one on the property so far, but not far away. If I get good photo opportunities, I'll take some more pics and post them for you. Unfortunately, we are just coming into winter and the lizards will slow up now for a while. Although some geckos were out last night and my friend the python was out hunting in a different spot as well. I moved her along as she was laying in wait near our bird feeder- to which the possums and gliders come nocturnally to clean up what the birds leave.

[uwe]

Last I heard, the blue tongue lizards/skinks weren't protected in Germany (that means you don't have to notify authorities if you buy, sell or breed them, imports from the wild might be another matter, but there is really no need for that, they breed well), but all(Australian and other Oceania) monitors of course are, that means only bred species may be sold and that is, er, monitored (pun unintended!).

Blue tongue lizards/skinks are like guinea pigs with scales really, they adjust well to being pets, you just have to be careful that they don't overeat. And anything they have in their jaws, they won't let go, their jaws clamp like tongs. But in all those years, I have not been bitten by one of them while my monitor did lose the ability to differentiate between (my) finger and (his) food when he was in the excitement of being fed. And those needle "teeth" he had in his jaws really hurt and infected quickly too. I still miss him!

These days I only get bitten by the tokeh gekkos!