Amphiglossus melanurus

Husbandry

Since there is very little information on A. melanurus out there, I have based their husbandry on the limited amount of information I could find on their natural history and applied it to my general knowledge of skink keeping.

Enclosure



I keep a 0.0.3 trio in a plastic tub. I'd have to check what size it is, but it's about 2 feet long by 1.5 feet wide. I drilled holes on all sides of the enclosure near the top to provide adequate air flow but prevent most of the humidity from escaping. I keep the lid on all the time so they don't escape and to keep the humidity in. The lid is dark and the actual bin is transparent, so the get a bit of light during the day but not a lot. I am still debating whether to add UVB or not. Considering they appear to be a burrowing species, they would not be exposed to much sun. However, the main cause of my debate is whether they are diurnal or nocturnal. In a couple of photos, it appears that their eyes have slit pupils which made me think they might be diurnal. However, I took two pictures with flash on that should round pupils, but I have seen many nocturnal species and those with slit pupils have dilated pupils in light occasionally (copperheads for example). I have also not noticed any difference in activity from daytime to nighttime. Since they are almost always burrowed, I rarely see them. One of mine, Hades, will come out a lot and is not afraid of me, so I have really only been able to observe him. Another however: taking the lid off their enclosure would wake them up, so if they did sleep during the day, I would have a hard time observing it. I have heard some movement at night that sounds like they are hitting the side of the enclosure, in which case, I believe they may be chasing each other around.


The enclosure is heated using heat tape attached to a herpstat intro. The heat tape is attached on the short side of the enclosure opposite of the water bowl. Despite them being native to Madagascar, they also have their own microclimates, and since I have found no information on the subject, I have mostly made educated guesses. The hot end I have set to a surface temperature of 96.8oF which is read by a temperature probe. The surface temperature of their cool end is usually about 80-81oF. I would prefer to give them temperatures into the 70s, but due to having my room directly above a garage, my room temperature furing the summer has stayed at about 81. I am hoping that winter and fall will allow their ambient temps to drop a bit.



Their substrate is a mix of sphagnum peat moss, filler dirt, and a large amount of leaf mold and leaf litter that was collected from outside in areas that are not exposed to chemicals by the land owners. I have also added in some branches and cork logs/hides. They have a large water bowl on the cool side of their enclosure. I have seen Hades take a dip in there several times, and it is also a favorite spot to relieve themselves. I've actually had a few mushrooms sprout up (I believe they were some species of "inky cap" mushrooms. They disappeared pretty quickly, usually popping up overnight and disappearing the next day. I have also witnessed some springtails running around the I assume came in with the leaf litter.



Feeding

I have been offering these guys small dubia nymphs and small-medium/large mealworms dusted with calcium with d3. Like many skinks, they seem to be a bottomless pit, and Hades, who will eat from my fingers, rarely appears to become full on a meal. I have witnessed one of the other skinks eat only once, so I do not know how the other two are faring in terms of eating. They seem to have an amazing sensitivity to movements in the leaflitter/soil and will find prey very easily.


Behaviour

They are a fairly secretive species. Two of the three (Poseidon and Zeus) will immediately flail and hide if they even see a glimpse of me, though Zeus is slightly less afraid of me than Poseidon. I believe that Hades is an outlier. While I only have a few of the species to compare, skink species in general are very nervous and flighty. From day two, Hades would sit ontop of one of the cork logs and just watch me. When I put my hand near him to drop food, he'd hesitate and maybe back up a little, but he stayed around as I would feed him. Now he almost has no problem with me (as long as I don't catch him unawares). He will walk onto my hand and up my arm if offered to him, and he will take insects from my hands freely. Sometimes he will even come near me and lift his little front arms off the ground and look up at me. Whether this is a display of curiosity or recognition is yet to be seen. I look forward to seeing if any of the other skinks will come around and stay out more often to be observed. As for intraspecies interaction, I have yet to see any aggressive behavior. The sellers kept them all in a group at their facility for about 4 months, and they said they did not see any fighting amongst them. As mentioned before, I have heard them hitting the sides of the bin in the evening/early night. This could possibly be aggression, mating behaviour, or simply startling one or telling the other to "back off" so to speak.



(The video is uploading at the moment, but it should be done in about 30 minutes.)