Skinky Facts

Skinky Facts

Image source:  By JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7969289

1. The skink family is a group of smooth, shiny, almost slippery lizards. The cylindrical body and tail are covered with smooth scales. This group is found on every continent with the exception of Antarctica.

1,200 species occur worldwide.

2. The Great desert skink is a large burrowing skink which weighs up to 350 grams and is about 440 millimetres from the snout to the tip of the tail when fully grown.

3. Great desert skinks were first recorded by European explorers in the Great Victorian Desert during the Elder expedition of 1892-93.

4. A distinctive feature of Great desert skink burrows is the large latrine area where resident lizards habitually defecate.

5. The prehensile-tailed skink is also called as giant skink, Solomon Island skink, monkey-tail skink, Solomon Island prehensile-tailed skink, Solomon Island green tree skink.

6. The prehensile-tailed skink is the only skink that is completely herbivorous.

7. The prehensile-tailed skink is the only known species of skink with a prehensile, or grasping, tail.

8. The yakka skink is a robust lizard with a thick tail and short legs around the same size as a blue tongue lizard.

9. When threatened, a Blue-tongue Skink will flatten its body, hiss and open its mouth to display the blue tongue to scare the predator away. Skinks are often eaten by central Australian Aborigines and their other predators include snakes, monitors and raptors (birds of prey).

10. Western Blue-tongue Skinks are smooth-scaled and have a broad, triangular shaped head. Wide, darkcoloured bands run across the skink's body and tail. They also have a fleshy blue tongue, which gives them their name.

11. The species name, zebrata, refers to the reptile’s marbled striped coloration, like that of a zebra.

12. Unlike most reptiles, prehensile-tailed skinks often live in a social group called a circulus.

13. They vary in colour and size, with the longest skink measuring 350 millimetres from head to tail.

14. Skinks eat insects and fruit. They are highly alert animals, with an exceptional sense of smell, hearing and sight.

15. One New Zealand skink (called the egg-laying skink) lays eggs, but all other species give birth to fully-formed young. They usually have three to six babies each year, but sometimes have more than ten.