Cohabing a Pink Tongue Skink and Crested Gecko

[Kcl]

Leaving aside the suitability of cohabbing in general for the moment, what is your essential research question for this project? It seems ill-defined from what you've shared so far.

Is it behavioral? Will you be observing the effects of the other animal's presence on each other's behavior? If so, the lack of a baseline for behavior from the individuals will be a problem.

It sounds like maybe it's related to husbandry? If so, what is the research question that benefits from the presence of both? If it's merely to prove that you can create a habitat that meets the needs of both, that's not exactly a research question and also doesn't essentially benefit from the actual presence of the animals. There's a number of questions related to husbandry that would make more solid research questions.

For example, you could observe the effects of UV light on diurnal snakes such as garter snakes that are not considered to need it but has some arguments over if they benefit. For this, you could have two snakes in two cages cages, smaller than you'd need for cohabbing the lizards, one with the UV light and one without for the first six months, and then switch which one has the UV light and observe behavior in each set-up and behavioral changes with the light swap. This, like the previous proposal, is obviously limited by the small sample size, but has the possibility of suggesting something of interest.

Another possibility would be documenting behavioral effects of various environmental enrichment on snakes or lizards. This could be done either by adding various enrichment for periods of time and observing behavioral changes, or setting up one animal in a planted vivarium and another in a minimalistic tank among many other options. This would provide data on the responsiveness of reptiles to various (positive) stimuli.

You could also investigate the ability of reptiles to learn via food motivated training. It's easier with some lizards, but there is a woma python out there that has learned to open a puzzle box for food, my own garter snakes are mostly target trained although one does a better job, and turtles have been found to do a good job of mazes once they were finally tested with better ambient temperatures. You could get two similar species and compare how well they do, you could track what stimuli one specific individual of one specific species responds better to, you could track what conditions affect how well an individual does, lots of options really.

Basically though - what are you trying to find out and why is this specific set-up the appropriate choice?

[skylord0110]

Those are all really interesting topics, but I doubt most of them would have any solid results since reptiles all have different personalities. I feel the results would be specific to the individual reptiles I studied. I could get solid results if I had maybe 10 or so, but that isn't an option obviously. This isn't a formal research project where I need to have as solid a topic as you suggested. It's a little hard to explain. For a capstone you need to choose a topic specific to your interests. Some people host something as simple as sports tournaments and make that their capstone. So the topic I choose is more than acceptable. I already spoke to my guidance counselor to ensure I could do it, and she said yes. So you could ask, "Why don't I just make a vivarium then?". I very well could, but I feel I would get better reception with this topic. I wanted to challenge myself a little more, and on top of that I'm not fully confident a vivarium would be anywhere near as good as my current idea. I have a lot of confidence in this cohabbing idea. I am yet to find any people that have a failed cohabbing enclosure for pink tongue skinks. Even when people give them less than the suggested space they seem to live peacefully. So your suggestions are interesting, but they just aren't appealing for this project.

[Kcl]

No project would get solid results with only two individuals, correct, as it would be a flawed sample size to begin with, but it at least would have some possibility of results at all. I simply don't get what the results of your proposed project are supposed to be? I guess based on the guidelines of the project, just a vivarium that fits the generally accepted guidelines of care for the two species and has two animals in it. I may simply be failing to see it, but the only proposed benefit of adding the actual animals is for audience appeal. That fails one of the basic questions of ethical animal research, which is "why are animals needed?" You may well never get called out on that, but I'd consider it if I were you. Particularly if you ever might want to discuss the project as support for being accepted to work in an animal research lab in university or beyond.

[skylord0110]

Yea it’s less a bout a specific question and more about the whole experience. It’s not much more complicated than housing these 2 together. I wouldn’t be using these 2 species if I knew of any better alternatives, or if there were multiple cases of failed cohabing for these 2. It’s just interesting because most people would say it’s wrong, but I hope my efforts can help prove that wrong. I realize you could just say, “well it worked for you but not everyone” which is true, but maybe it will help make people more open to it if they see actual documentation of the entire process. Because this would be very interesting to see this become more popular. But on the most basic level I’m doing it because I want to. I wanted more reptiles, and I found something that I find interesting, feasible, and good enough to make my capstone out of it. A capstone doesn’t have to answer a specific question or get a certain result. It’s more about what you did, why, how, and how it turned out. There are far more intricate as well as more basic capstones than mine, but thankfully mine is good enough. I plan on becoming a zoologist one day so I will definitely bring this up, but not as anything major.

[Aztec4mia]

Pink tongues are really docile. They would never attack something like a crested Gecko in order to eat it. People have even managed to breed the two species without the adults attacking each other or the babies. I’m not worried about them fighting. My only worry right now is setting up a good enclosure and getting the reptiles simultaneously.

Have you talked with anyone who owns or breeds pink tongue skinks or crested geckos to confidently make that statement? Ball pythons are very docile animals as well, to but there is always a handful that are aggressive no matter how much you work with them.

[Aztec4mia]

I've looked at other topics. This one is by far the most interesting I have found, and it isn't horribly expensive by comparison to the cheaper options. It will run me around $600 a price I am more than willing and able to pay. I do care about the animals of course. I wouldn't base my capstone about reptiles if I didn't care about them. A capstone is a big project, and if I want to make it good I can't just make a vivarium, or anything else with my snake. She is far from breeding age, and buying more ball pythons for breeding purposes would be cheaper, but also significantly harder, and I'm just not as interested in it. The cage will be a little smaller than planned at 36x 18x 24x, but I'm going to have more than enough objects and plants for the crested gecko to hide in if it ever feels threatened. And yes of course for the pink tongue skink too(My experience makes it hard for me to believe that you can keep the temp low enough and the humidity high enough to reasonably accommodate both species using an external heat source, maybe if you added the heat lamp inside focusing on one narrow basking spot, but them you would have to worry about the gecko climbing on a hot lamp cage when lights go out.). I haven't ever owned any of these species, but after hours of research I couldn't find one post to suggest they would show aggression to a crested gecko(I would imagine that the people who have done this likely have experience/kept one or both species, how would you know what to look for when you don't know how each species acts alone?.). There have been multiple people that simultaneously breed the species in a cage together without any problem. I cannot find a single person that has actually owned these reptiles in the same cage and had any problems. I know it sounds like a bad idea, but in practice it works well. Either failed attempts aren't posted, or I can't manage to find them(that's a no brainer, trying something that is usually shunned in the hobby and failed at it, I doubt they will be posting the negative results for the world to see.). If my tone comes off as aggressive it's not supposed to be(It is not, it sounds like you are eager to learn, i'm just not sure what it is with this project. Right now it sounds like "lets see if I can keep two animals together from different continents and hope they don't die). I'm hoping to have every thing ready by the end of November this year, and I'll be making another post(yes for more attention) documenting the process online, and how everything goes. Thank you for your responses because I did take them into consideration with this project. I made sure to do plenty of research before hand. And the learning point of this project is to learn how to keep these reptiles happy and healthy in one cage while also maintaining a vivarium with everything inside of it. I forgot to mention that and a few other things so I'm just adding them at the bottom.Their temps and humidity levels aren't far off from each other. There is a potential problem in the heat lamp, but I'm hoping I can reach that basking temps with uvb bulbs in certain locations while the crested gecko can get far away from it. Worst case scenario is the uvb lights are too hot. I can prop up the uvb bulbs to ensure they keep the plants alive, but without the heat covering the whole cage. And then I will have a single small basking spot for the skink on the opposite end of the gecko's side.

In closing, I think some better(not more) research before hand would be more ideal. try keeping them separate first and note any differences when you put them together. You said you do not want two cages, what happens if you get a "bad apple" for either species and they don't get along, how will you separate them? How will that effect your project? because right now it does not sound like you have prepared for a negative outcome for such an important project. If you are interested in what is best for the animals, you have to know what it is like to keep them alone before you can try to co-habituate and you can not get that by reading a bunch online, at the very least I would actually talk(actual phone call) to someone with experience in doing this. Just my observations, hope all goes according to plan.

[Aztec4mia]

Yea it’s less a bout a specific question and more about the whole experience. It’s not much more complicated than housing these 2 together. I wouldn’t be using these 2 species if I knew of any better alternatives, or if there were multiple cases of failed cohabing for these 2(you could try this with two species that are from the same region in an attempt to recreate a wild environment on a smaller scale ). It’s just interesting because most people would say it’s wrong, but I hope my efforts can help prove that wrong. I realize you could just say, “well it worked for you but not everyone” which is true, but maybe it will help make people more open to it if they see actual documentation of the entire process. Because this would be very interesting to see this become more popular(If everything went well, it is not very likely to catch on, reptiles are not like fish keeping where you could grab random species from different countries and similar care requirements and then have them crawling around a cage together. But on the most basic level I’m doing it because I want to. I wanted more reptiles, and I found something that I find interesting, feasible, and good enough to make my capstone out of it. A capstone doesn’t have to answer a specific question or get a certain result. It’s more about what you did, why, how, and how it turned out. There are far more intricate as well as more basic capstones than mine, but thankfully mine is good enough. I plan on becoming a zoologist one day so I will definitely bring this up, but not as anything major(Again, for such an important project I just do not see this doing it justice for you. You will likely have the advantage that your teacher and classmates have no idea about anything reptile; so this could impress them, but this would have very little if any scientific relevance and would not help your zoology degree in any way).

[wolfy-hound]

I don't think you can get a 90F basking spot in a 36 inch cage without raising the heat in the entire cage past what is good for a crestie... nor without lowering the humidity to the point that it will be unhealthy for the crestie. Especially not with it only 18 x 24in for the other dimensions. It's too small to get both ends of that co-mingled ranges needed.

I don't think an adult pink-tongue is a good match with an adult crestie and I think you'll end up with injured crestie, which you probably won't ever post about on here... which is why you probably don't read many "failed" cohab projects.

There's nothing really to "learn" in this as a capstone project imo. The animals don't come from anywhere near each other. There's zero "natural" interaction possible. It reads a lot more like someone who wants some pets, doesn't want to make two cages and thinks they can just smush the two into a cage and hey, I'll use my assignment as an excuse to do so.

I'm also unsure why you keep mentioning breeding, since you won't be breeding these.

[danielwilu2525]

These animals are not meant to be kept together. Hours of research does not equate to actual experience of owning both of them. Just get both but keep them *SEPERATED*

[Jus1More]

I'm scratching my head on this one!! You mentioned in one of your replies that you discussed this project with your "guidance counselor"...!!!!! So you are a younger person in school then trying to make a good grade and/or get a blue ribbon reward for seeing if by putting 2 different species together can survive successfully? Hmmmm! I agree with the majority here and advise against this. Now please dont get me wrong, I am all for education, but do you understand that most of us here on this site are all die hard reptile lovers!!!!!! You are introducing this project to all of us here and for the most part are getting negative feedback to where hopefully will make you rethink this.

I applaud you for doing your research but how intense was it and for how long did you research (2 month of research does not even scratch the surface of things)... Did you actually talk to other people who did this successfully or just read other peoples threads?

I am not writing this response to sound rude or cruel, but I am a person who believes in respecting and caring for reptiles with the highest standards. Like most of us here, we are into keeping reptiles as our hobby, some with more passion then others. Its not to see which lizard and or snake will kill each other first while kept in the same enclosure.