Found this little critter in the cold and alone, motionless on the ice cold road and seemingly too cold to move. He has since been released back into the wild where he belongs. But I thought you might enjoy having a closer look at one of Australia’s more interesting little lizards. The weasel skink (Saproscincus mustelinus). A shadeskink!

I came across him at around nine o’clock in the evening, which seemed rather late for a skink to be wandering around in such cold weather. He was right in the road and wasn’t moving very much, so I didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving him there for the next passing car to find.

I brought him inside for the night and made up a temporary little shelter using some grass from the garden and an empty DVD spindle container. Extremely luxurious accommodation, as you can imagine! At least it was somewhere quiet where he could warm up without being run over.

He was a rather handsome little fellow, with different markings from the garden skinks I usually see around here. One of the more distinctive features appeared to be a pale marking behind the eye, along with a reddish colour towards the tail. I’d been comparing identification photographs to work out what species he might be.

Australia has an extraordinary variety of skinks, and I’ve always enjoyed watching them around the garden. Some of them look almost identical at a glance, while others have very recognisable patterns and body shapes. It’s amazing how many different kinds you can find once you start looking.

I gave the little visitor some gentle warmth and spent a while filming him. He was still rather lethargic at first, although that wasn’t surprising given the conditions outside. Every so often he’d move around, flick his tongue and look directly at the camera as though wondering what all the excitement was about.

The following morning, with conditions improved, I took him back outside and released him into the bushes. Off he went! Hopefully he found a suitable place to hide and continued doing whatever little skinks do when they’re not starring in my videos.

In other news, we’ve just reached 500 YouTube subscribers! Thank you to everyone who’s been watching these videos, whether you’re here for Sega hardware, old computers or the occasional visit from an Australian lizard. It really does mean a lot.

I’ve also been trying to learn Final Cut Pro X for editing, although the learning curve is turning out to be rather steeper than I expected. I may end up going back to iMovie for some of the simpler videos. Sometimes you just want to put the footage together without spending the entire afternoon figuring out which button does what.

Anyway, enjoy this little diversion from the usual electronics. Lizards are lovely creatures, and it was nice being able to help this one out of the cold and back into the garden.

Back to the retro hardware soon!