Melinda Arnold with the Dickerson Park Zoo joins us this morning.  She brought an interesting friend to visit for us. 

Jessica Williams - I was concerned it might be a snake, and I'm glad to see its not.  But what is this? I've never seen something like this before.

Melinda - This is Buddy, a blue-tongued skink - and you can see why he has the name.  He's an animal from our education collection.  He's not something you'll see on exhibit when you visit the zoo.  He is an animal we work with and handle a lot, to do our outreach programs with schools, civic groups and other organizations that we go out an do presentations for.  Or our docents, who are education volunteers, may have Buddy out on the Zoo grounds for an up-close encounter for the kids and adults who come to the Zoo.

But they're native to Australia. And you can tell why he's a blue-tongued skink, where they get that name is from their blue tongue.  It's part of their defense.  There are skinks all around the world - we have skinks here in the Ozarks.  What makes these guys a little different is they are so heavy-bodied.  They have a very thick body, very short legs, very unlike the skinks here in the Ozarks.  They can lose their tails if a predator gets ahold of it.  It will grow back, slowly, but it never will look really good.  Their other defense is to puff up their body, inhale air and make their body as bit as they can, and turn their side to the predator.  Then they open their mouth, which is bright pink inside, and that blue tongue, and just try to look as vicious as they can.

Jessica - He kind of looks like - the gills of a fish, and a snake-ish body.  What descendants do they have?
Melinda - They are reptiles, so they are cold-blooded.  In the wild, they're going to spend their days basking, sunning themselves, basking, to stay warm.
During the cooler months, they're going to be in shelter, hibernating to make it through the cooler months when they can't be exposed to the elements.  What you see on the sides are actually ears rather than gills.  He's 16 to 18 inches long, which is on the big side for these lizards.  They are typically 12 to 14 inches, can get up to about 20 inches.  Not uncommon as pets.  They're fairly docile as long as they are not being roughly handled.  Buddy actually came to us as a former pet about three years ago.  He was a couple of years old at that time.

Jessica - Tell me about events at the Zoo for Father's Day?
Melinda - On Father's Day, June 21, you can bring Dad out, give him a day with the family.  We're offering free admission all day for Dads.  The gates are open 9 to 5 and it's regular admission for everyone else.  It's a special day for us to recognize the dads, so bring him out an have a good time.