Yellow-bellied three-toed skink
She's transitional! This is a live-bearing reptile carrying a load of eggs, and with a modified membrane to secrete calcium and other nutrients to the embryos.
She's also looking a bit pugilistic about it all, too.
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Mary's Monday Metazoan: Kinky skinky
Category: Organisms
Posted on: September 6, 2010 9:29 PM, by PZ Myers
Yellow-bellied three-toed skink
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Comments
Posted by: Zugswang
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September 6, 2010 9:40 PM
This has been getting a lot of attention in the media, lately, and for good reason, it's pretty damned cool.
Posted by: sheik.djibouti.al.nayt
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September 6, 2010 9:41 PM
"And not a single f*** was given that day"
Posted by: jcim
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September 6, 2010 9:48 PM
anyone else see this and immediately think it was satan 'pre-fall'???
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM, CR
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September 6, 2010 9:48 PM
Predictably, the comments at Nat Geo are already filled with claims that this is another of God's miracles, and evidence against evolution! (after all, her babies will look just like her when they grow up!)
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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September 6, 2010 9:49 PM
She's absolutely adorable. Finally, a potential mate for Leto Atreides II.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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September 6, 2010 9:56 PM
oy.
From the comments over there:
man, with friends like that...
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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September 6, 2010 9:58 PM
oh yeah: cool skink
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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September 6, 2010 10:01 PM
A little small, isn't she?
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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September 6, 2010 10:02 PM
Snake envy is what I call it.
Glen Davidson
Posted by: F
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September 6, 2010 10:07 PM
Uh, what!?
Indeed.
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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September 6, 2010 10:21 PM
I just about had a heart attack. At first glance, I thought this was an elapid with forelimbs. I guess if you took what I don't know about squamates and wrote a book, you might be able to sell it. I guess the scales look wrong, but the eyes are mean. Maybe that's not a great diagnostic character.
Posted by: F
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September 6, 2010 10:31 PM
And she's staring at PZ. Or maybe down at the embryo. Hard to say.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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September 6, 2010 10:39 PM
Oh, and I suppose you and your wife are exactly the same in terms of size, shape, and fictionality?
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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September 6, 2010 10:51 PM
F...she's one bad motherf- (shut your mouth).
Posted by: F
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September 6, 2010 11:27 PM
Shaft!
iz in yer handz
gonna punch yer fumbz
Posted by: Joe Bloe
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September 7, 2010 12:08 AM
So the mountain skinks drop their young one week later than the coastal skinks. Interesting...
Posted by: MadScientist
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September 7, 2010 12:27 AM
Transitional? But where are the feathers - or the bright yellow peel?
Posted by: toddcaton
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September 7, 2010 1:03 AM
I thought this was another Jan Brewer post.
Posted by: SonOfSLJ
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September 7, 2010 1:17 AM
The Tom Servo of reptiles.
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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September 7, 2010 1:22 AM
Well, that's more elegant some sharks' method of nourishing their live-born young by letting them eat one another. I suppose it's all in teh Divine PlanTM
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
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September 7, 2010 1:26 AM
I mean nourishing them in utero. And of course some baby unborn sharks simply eat mom's unfertilized eggs.
Posted by: TrineBM
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September 7, 2010 2:34 AM
That IS a cool skink. And she'll have cool little skinkelings.
She does look a bit like me when I hear anyone critizising (sp?) my son. Not that that happens very often of course.
Posted by: TheRatKing
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September 7, 2010 2:43 AM
And because she is Australian, give her another 200,000 years and she'll develop some of the most toxic venom on the planet...
Aw who am I kidding?
She'll not only have the venom ready in just 20,000 years, but will also be able to fling her babies at you with her tail... and they will be fully loaded, too...
Posted by: Marjolein
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September 7, 2010 5:30 AM
Awww! She's so cuuuuute!
That being said, I have to admire this species; what woman looks thát good and self-assured while being pregnant of multiple babies?
Posted by: RockyHarper
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September 7, 2010 5:55 AM
Very nice. We have mostly Five-Lined skinks (Eumeces fasiatus) where I live. When they are young the blue tail is beautiful. I've seen them challenge a Green Anole over meal worms. The Anole's throat fan was doing overtime.
Posted by: shjcpr
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September 7, 2010 6:19 AM
Evolution rules and P.Z. Myers is its prophet.
Evo akbar!. Evo akbar!. Evo Akbar!
Posted by: Birger Johansson
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September 7, 2010 6:25 AM
TheRatKing: "She'll not only have the venom ready in just 20,000 years, but will also be able to fling her babies at you with her tail... and they will be fully loaded, too..."
Like some lizards, she will be able to fling her detached tail as a distraction..only, with the venomous young gripping the tail, it will be a weapon, not a distraction! When the predator succumbs to poison, the female eats it, thus getting the nourishment for growing a new tail. The scraps go to the juvenile reptiles, giving them a good start in life. After some generations, the females will actively seek out predators to lure them close.
--- --- --- ---
Add post-apocalyptic radiation (left behind by Mel Gibson et al) her offspring will develop into telepathically connected group minds predators, making the reptiles the dominant life form of the continent.
Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere
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September 7, 2010 6:47 AM
pfft, transitional forms are just a theory ;)
Posted by: David Marjanović
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September 7, 2010 9:38 AM
Nope. I thought about the balaur with the golden scales. :-)
Posted by: neon-elf.myopenid.com
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September 7, 2010 10:01 AM
What a cute critter! I love the little legs! And a really interesting adaption.
Posted by: Reed
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September 7, 2010 10:31 AM
Anyone else think she looks like a minature otter?
Posted by: Acronym Jim
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September 7, 2010 10:33 AM
"The Yellow-bellied Three-Toed Skinks." What a great name for a band.
Posted by: llewelly
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September 7, 2010 10:53 AM
Brownian, OM | September 6, 2010 9:49 PM:
There is certainly an appealing similarity of shape. But Leto Atreides II was, what, 15 meters long? Whereas this skin is, what, maybe 5 centimeters long? The Pomeranian / Great Dane couple would have nothing on Leto II / Lady Skink .
Posted by: MosesZD
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September 7, 2010 11:06 AM
This so so cool!
Posted by: MosesZD
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September 7, 2010 11:47 AM
Yes! Her face and upper-body did give that imperssion at first.
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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September 7, 2010 12:02 PM
Cool.
Quick question, does those leg actually support her, or does she move around like a snake?
At first I thought it was a transitional form between a lizard and a snake.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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September 7, 2010 12:15 PM
You know men. Always insecure about size.Posted by: TheRatKing
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September 7, 2010 5:42 PM
@UberFubarius - The legs are probably still mobile, but they are far too small to provide any sort of support. That lil beauty would slither about much like a snake, though since she doesn't have much length to her, she's probably quite a bit slower.
Posted by: Kinnell
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September 7, 2010 9:05 PM
Strange - the first thing I thought was it's a baby Jabba the Hutt.
Posted by: F
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September 7, 2010 11:16 PM
Rocky @ 25
Like this?
http://www.xiongdudu.com/image/Southeastern_Five_lined_Skink
Posted by: John Scanlon FCD
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September 8, 2010 2:04 AM
Antiochus, there is something rather Notechis or Naja about the head, I agree.
There are lots and lots of elongate, reduced-limbed skinks in Australia, in every habitat from rainforest to sand dunes, and most of them make quite acceptable snake food (e.g. there are sand-swimming snakes that specialise on sand-swimming lizards...). Where I grew up these things (three-toed, Saiphos equalis) were the easiest reptiles to find in the backyard, under small rocks and leaf litter. Like other nearly-limbless skinks, this one is mainly a burrower and you don't see them alive on the surface. I didn't know about their reproductive oddities (until a couple of decades ago...), but every few years there'd be a massive die-off, and when I checked the corpses they all seem to have undergone multiple John Hurt-like Alien exvasions from the body cavity. They come out in the open to die, which probably helps the parasites move on to the next host. Not sure what the little horrors were (duh, parasitic invertebrates don't have what I'd call morphology); but probably not coincidentally, it's well-known among Australian herps that you don't feed Saiphos to snakes or they will die. Don't know if it's known whether their flesh is actually toxic, or just those really bad bugs.
Posted by: great.american.satan
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September 8, 2010 8:24 AM
@25, When I was in a zoo in Wichita recently, one of the animals I found most memorable was not an exhibit. It was a juvenile 5-lined skink. Having not been familiar with the species, I first thought it might be a little whiptail lizard ( http://www.reptilesofaz.org/Graphics/Lizards/ASPUNI-2004.jpg ). Lizards are too damn cute.
My other take-away from the zoo: Luzon bleeding-heart doves are cheeky and blue macaws are attention whores. And megafauna in captivity are depressing as hell.
Posted by: casey.oneill.is
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September 8, 2010 10:25 PM
Is it so wrong that the first thing I thought when I saw this was that there should be another so that there could be an awesome skink high five?
That and the whole geek side of me remembering fighting lizardman armies and how much I hate skinks.