skink

Lizard of the family Scincidae, a large family of about 700 species found throughout the tropics and subtropics. The body is usually long and the legs are reduced. Some skinks are legless and rather snakelike. Many are good burrowers, or can ‘swim’ through sand, like the sandfish genus Scincus of North Africa. Some skinks lay eggs, others bear live young.

Skinks include the three-toed skink Chalcides chalcides of southern Europe and northwest Africa, up to 40 cm/16 in long, of which half is tail, and the stump-tailed skink Tiliqua rugosa of Australia, which stores fat in its triangular tail, looks the same at either end, and feeds on fruit as well as small animals. A new skink genus was identified in the rainforest of the Philippine Islands and described in 1997. There are two species of moist forest skink Parvoscinus. They lack external ear openings and females have only one oviduct and lay a single egg.