Sunday, June 20, 2010

හීරළුවා/හිකනලා[Heeraluwa/Hikanala]Dotted Garden Skink (Lygosoma punctatum)


A subfossorial skink with wide distribution in all climatic zones of the island. Relatively much common in the dry zone plains although occurs in wet lowlands and mid-elevations. There are records even from Colombo gardens and under coral stones in some offshore islands (Delft, Nagadeepa). it sometime enters houses. Dotted Garden Skink is frequently seen among leaf litters and when disturbed burrowed swiftly into loose sand or leaf litter. Diurnal and feed on small insects. Characteristic scarlet tail of young and subadults becoming brown or pink with age and faded out completely in adults. This highly fragile tail of young let them to escape from predators while attacker would be satisfied with seized brighter tail part. Both adults and juveniles can be diagnosed by having 4 to 6 longitudinal lines of black spots bordered by two cream color broad strips on dorsum.

10 comments:

  1. Is this poisonous? Pls answer...

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  2. No. None of Sri Lankan skinks are venomous.

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  3. Thanks :) One got into my home today and I'm trying to find it but not able to :( It runs so fast... Just worried if it would bite. It's a lot smaller than the above pic.

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    1. Just ignore it and let it find its way out of your home :) . This is not a big one. Actually one in the picture is also a juvenile about a size of a gecko

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  4. why they are not afraid... recently one came to my house and it didnt respond when i try to remove it from stick. no afraid at all...

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  5. Is it true that when they bite us it can make us deaf???

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  6. We are trying to look after a Hikanala that was attacked by our dogs. It lost some scales from its back, got blood in its mouth, and looked bad. We thought it would die. We kept it in a safe area of the garden. It seems to be slowly recovering. We want to help or aid in it's recovery process. Could you please advise us as to how we could get about doing this? What to provide as food, what to apply on its back where the scales came off...? etc

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  7. What food does hikanala eats ?

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