Sometimes it seems that I’ve been in this hobby all my life. The feeling I have in my heart and the love I have for my reptiles (and all animals) seems to me so fresh and new that it feels as if I just started yesterday. Throughout the years I’ve seen so many new animals rise to stardom. I remember in the early 90’s when Bearded Dragons (Pogona Vitticeps) were virtually unknown. In 1993-94, Ornate Uromastyx (Uromastyx Ornata) were imported by the thousands and were selling for only fifty dollars at the shows. I even remember seeing the Chinese cave geckos (Goniurosaurus luii), the Vietnamese cave geckos (Goniurosaurus araneus) and the Monkey Tailed Skinks (Corucia zebrata) for twenty-five dollars! Twenty-five dollars each! I opted to pass thinking they’ll always be around and imported. I didn’t think then that they would be as rare as some coelacanth or black-headed python today. I knew I had something special in 96 when I found Ish and Em but I didn't realize their uniqueness until recently. Who can think that they have in their hands the first pie-bald ball python?

I eventually named my original high orange northern male “Ish” and my orange/caramel female “Em” after two characters who represented the last of humanity in an old 1949 novel called Earth Abides. The fictional “Ish” was based on a real life person named “Ishi” the last Yahi who was the last untainted American Indian to ever live. I learned about Ishi in 1987 when I was in high school as it deeply affected me even now over eighteen years later. I learned how he was the last stone age man, how he lived free from any influence of any white American. He wore skins, crafted stone and hunted with a bow and arrow he fashioned with his own hands. He knew things nobody on Earth could ever know or experience about plants, the earth, wildlife and nature's true spirit. Nobody could understand him since he was the last speaker of Yahi, but most saw him as some side show freak and didn't appreciate what he represented. It was a terribly sad history lesson when I realized that when Ishi died, so did his people and his way of life forever lost on the beach of  the sands of time.

My Ish and Em are truly old, over 14 years,  most likely 18+. They were old when I got them when an old blue-tongue breeder told me how he had these truly old skinks  for years. I memorized each comment he made and still reminisce about that fateful day when I serendipitously encountered him at the Cow Palace reptile show in the mid 1990's. He told me how searched for a matching northern for Ish and the closest equivalent he ever found for the years he had reptiles was Em. He claimed they were approximately four to six years of age but I thought more along the lines of eight. They could be older, but I didn't care. At that time I had trouble even finding "classic" northerns and I couldn't pass up these truly unique and remarkable high orange northerns. 

Ish's age: 14+

Ish's weight: 930 grams

Ish's length: 

Em's age: 14+

Em's weight:

Em's length:

first published on a thread in bluetongueskinks.net april 2005; edited June 2005

 

Future Northern Sunset Skink Projects

See if I can get another F1 group from Ish and Em, but for the last three years they haven't produced anything. Ish has also stopped breeding, not even remotely interested in females.

Breed Ish Jr. for the first time for the 2005 season.

Breed the F2 group for the first time in 2005.

Em (Original Female)

Ish (Original Male)

Em (Original Female)

Ish (Original Male)

Em (Original Female)