We had a mystery to solve in Rūma Piwakawaka on Thursday. Whaea Maria's cat had been catching skinks and bringing them into the garage. Whaea Maria had collected and frozen the skinks so we could study them.
We got out our magnifying glasses to see if the cat was killing good or bad skinks.
Whaea Michelle also showed us that some skinks had short tails and some long tails and some no tails. Whaea Michelle taught us that skinks loose there tails so they can escape cats trying to eat them.
We also looked at the skinks under the microscope and took photos. Quinn said "There is no scales on the tail. Oh that rhymes!" Their feet are a bit like our hands
Some of the tamariki were brave and touched the skinks. "It feels like a soft blanket." said Talisa, Jessie said "It felt weird!" Vann said "It felt scaly." Maddy agreed and said "It felt a bit like a snake because the scales look similar."
Unfortunately we think from our investigation that Missy is a bad cat as she has been catching native skinks.
Oh no! Did you work out any solutions to stop Missy catching the skins, Rūma Pīwakawaka people? Maybe she would wear a bell? Did you know, I read about skinks online after reading your post, and learned that in NZ skinks and gecko are SO protected that we are not allowed to catch or even hold them when they are alive. (It seems like we are not supposed to collect dead skinks either, but I think you learned such a huge amount from investigating these, so I don't think anyone will mind).
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