My little hisser! |
 |
I'm no animal expert, but I decided to put up a little page describing one of our most darling little pets. His name's Cornelius. Isn't he adorable?
My little hisser! |
|
The hand-model you see in the background actually is an animal expert. She's none other than my beautiful girlfriend Sarah. She knows practically everything there is to know about nature and wildlife. If you want more information about her professional work, please visit the Great Valley Nature Center in Devault, PA.
From what I know, blue-tongued skinks are native to Australia, live in deserts, and like to burrow a lot. Sarah and I frequently argue over whether or not skinks have teeth. Having been bitten by Cornelius twice now, I would say that skinks do in fact have teeth1. Of course, Sarah, having only been bitten by another skink once, disagrees with me. Here are some more pictures of Cornelius:
He's quite the chick-magnet! |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
Like most pets, Cornelius will eat just about anything. Fortunately, Sarah restricts his diet to a select subset of healthful items. His personal favorite is wet cat food, which we don't feed to our cats. And no, he doesn't try to eat the cats. This guy will usually wolf down any meat-like substance within 5 minutes of it being placed in his tank.
Cornelius gets along quite well with our cats, Satchmo and Mingus. Satchmo seems genuinely curious but he tends to back off when Cornelius sniffs him (by sticking his tongue out). Mingus, on the other hand, has developed quite the symbiotic relation with Cornelius. As the world's laziest cat, Mingus always needs a pillow on which to sleep, and as a cold-blodded critter, Cornelius always needs a heat source. What happens next is... well... see for yourself:
A face off... the cat is Mingus |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
And no, the pink sheets were not my idea. Once they've sniffed out each other... they decided to play nice :)
Who's petting who? |
 |
Aww Mingus is so nice and warm! |
 |
Here are some more shots of Mingus using Cornelius as a heat source:
Who knew Mingus liked cold pillows? |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
Blue-tongued skinks are lovely animals, but Cornelius is definitely not a morning skink. It is highly advised that you not wave any body parts in front of a blue-tongued skink's mouth when they are hungry. Here's one last picture, with all of my cats along with Cornelius. The little grey fuzzball in the back is Satchmo, or as he prefers to be called, "King Satchmo."
My happy family! |
 |