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Off topic: A close encounter with Yakka Skink (Erernia rugosa) at Mt Glo

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Subject: Off topic: A close encounter with Yakka Skink (Erernia rugosa) at Mt Glorious near Brisbane.
From: Judith Hoyle <>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:35:50 +0000
This posting is for any of you who are also into herpetology.  I was birding 
along Browns Road, Mt Glorious when I came across a very large lizard sunning 
itself in the middle of the road.  Looking at it through the bins from a 
distance, I thought it was an aberrantly coloured Blue Tongue.  I was able to 
get a few feet from it.  It was big, huge in fact  - certainly bigger than any 
of the Blue Tongues we get around here.  Uniformly dark charcoal grey/ brown on 
the ventral surface and brown / dark cream below, with no banding noted. Body 
robust with a thick icecream cone-shaped tail - that's the best I can describe 
it.  The thing that struck me the most though was the size of all 4 legs which 
were very large and muscular.  

As a) it was sitting in the middle of the road and b) because Gavin was about 
to come round the corner in the car and c) he had a camera, I decided to try 
and catch it.  Almost caught it - got onto the tail, but it wiggled free and 
got under a large tree trunk.

Habits are poorly known and although habitat does not  add up "usually found in 
dry open schlerophyll forest" according to Cogger, I am as certain as I can be 
of the ID and would appreciate comments  (or rebuttals with other alternative 
IDs).

On the birding side of things, just before seeing the skink I was lucky enough 
to watch a Russet-tailed Thrush foraging and then take the results of said 
forage to a single young bird, which had been making a contact call throughout 
the time it was separated from the parent bird. Great to see!

Kind regards

Judith
                                          
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