Yellow-bellied Water Skink at Nadgee, NSW
Identification history
| Unidentified | 21 Jan 2017 | MichaelMcMaster |
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User's notes
one of the water skinks.
4 comments
KerriLee
wrote:
30 May 2018
Either Eulampus heatwolei or E. tympanum. I'm suggesting E.heatwolei as the anterior rim of ear opening appears black (whereas it is pale in E.tympanum)
JackieMiles
wrote:
30 May 2018
I'm happy to confirm it, as I gather they are all heatwolei down here.
KerriLee
wrote:
30 May 2018
Thanks Jackie. I'm not so sure about them all being E.heatwolei down here, though ... I've just been looking back through our home records, I think we have images of both. I'll add what I believe to be E.tympanum shortly.
JackieMiles
wrote:
31 May 2018
Yep, just checked Cogger's distribution maps. He has heatwolei for the whole SC, but stopping at the Vic border, and tympanum occupying all of eastern Vic and the NSW high country and just creeping over the border into the far SC, so you could well have both. I've agonised over these two in the past; went so far as to shove one of our resident skinks in the fridge for a while so we could handle it and gave it a thorough scrutinising, but still wasn't convinced one way or the other at the end of that. It seems we need the underside of the throat in shot to tell between the two using Cogger's key: "throat with conspicuous dark grey streaks or reticulations" gets you to heatwolei, and lacking those or with at most a few pale grey spots or streaks takes you on eventually to tympanum. So best start flipping them over before you photograph!
Location information
- Coordinates 149.857114-37.442411
- Maps Nadgee Nature Reserve
- Places Nadgee, NSW
Sighting information
- 1 Abundance
- 19 Jan 2017 02:16 PM Recorded on
- MichaelMcMaster Recorded by
Species information
- Eulamprus heatwolei Scientific name
- Yellow-bellied Water Skink Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Local native
- Non-invasive or negligible
- Up to 1619.1m Recorded at altitude
- 378 images trained Machine learning
