66 skink facts, all checked

Every fact here is drawn from the sources listed on our sources page or explained in more detail elsewhere on the site. Numbers are rounded where scientists themselves disagree.

More than 1,700 skink species have been described (1,743 by 2022), about a quarter of all lizard species.
About 20 new skink species have been described every year over the past decade.
The word “skink” comes from the ancient Greek skinkos, the name for the sandfish.
German speakers call the sandfish the Apothekerskink, the pharmacist’s skink, because it was sold as medicine.
Skink scales contain small plates of bone, called osteoderms, arranged in a pattern found only in skinks.
Skinks are found on every continent except Antarctica.
Australia has more than 400 skink species, more than any other lizard family there.
Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man have no native skinks.
The slow-worm is not a skink. It belongs to the Anguidae, the family of glass lizards and alligator lizards.
The Isle of Man’s only native land reptile is the common lizard, a lacertid rather than a skink.
Live birth has evolved from egg-laying at least 31 separate times within skinks.
Almost all of New Zealand’s native skinks give birth to live young. The one exception is the egg-laying skink, Oligosoma suteri.
South American Mabuya skinks ovulate tiny, almost yolkless eggs and nourish their embryos through a complex placenta that parallels a mammal’s.
In 2019, scientists reported an Australian three-toed skink that laid eggs and then gave birth to a live baby from the same litter.
Female five-lined skinks curl around their eggs and guard them.
Many young skinks have bright blue tails that lure predators away from the head.
A dropped skink tail thrashes about, drawing a predator’s attack while the skink escapes.
A regrown skink tail is supported by a rod of cartilage, not bony vertebrae.
Never pick a skink up by its tail. It may come off.
Many skinks have a transparent window in the lower eyelid, so they can see with their eyes shut.
Snake-eyed skinks have a permanently fused, transparent lower eyelid, like a snake’s spectacle.
Limbs have been reduced or lost many separate times within skinks.
The Australian genus Lerista includes species with five toes, species with one, and species with no external legs.
Some New Guinea skinks have lime-green blood, coloured by the bile pigment biliverdin.
Green blood has evolved at least four separate times in New Guinea skinks.
The sandfish “swims” through sand with its legs tucked in, a motion filmed by X-ray in a 2009 Science study.
The sandfish has a countersunk lower jaw that keeps sand out of its mouth.
The blue-tongued skink’s tongue reflects ultraviolet light. A 2018 study suggested this makes the threat display more conspicuous to predators.
The pygmy blue-tongue has a pink tongue.
The pygmy blue-tongue was rediscovered in 1992 inside the stomach of a road-killed brown snake.
Pygmy blue-tongues live in burrows dug by spiders.
Shinglebacks are famous for long-term pair bonds. One pair in a long-running study stayed together for 27 years.
The shingleback’s stumpy tail stores fat and looks a lot like its head.
Shinglebacks usually have only two or three babies, but each can be up to 22 cm long.
The Solomon Islands skink eats only plants.
The Solomon Islands skink has a prehensile tail it uses like an extra hand.
Solomon Islands skinks usually give birth to a single large baby.
The Solomon Islands skink is the only living species in its genus, Corucia.
Gidgee skinks live in family groups that share the same crevice for years.
Gidgee skinks can recognise members of their own group by scent.
Some skinks inflate their bodies to wedge themselves into rock crevices.
Eastern blue-tongues give birth to litters of about 6–12 babies, sometimes more.
Eastern blue-tongues eat garden snails, so slug pellets can poison them.
Fire skinks get their name from the red and black bars along their sides.
The emerald tree skink lives on tree trunks, not on the ground like most skinks.
Emoia is one of the most widespread skink genera in the Pacific, found on islands from New Guinea to Polynesia.
The Christmas Island forest skink became extinct when the last known individual, nicknamed Gump, died in 2014.
The Christmas Island blue-tailed skink is Extinct in the Wild but survives thanks to captive breeding.
Christmas Island blue-tailed skinks have been established on islands in the Cocos (Keeling) group, where the main threats are absent.
Experts rank the introduced wolf snake as the most likely cause of the collapse of Christmas Island’s lizards.
New Zealand’s grand skink improved to “Nationally Increasing” in 2025 thanks to intensive predator control.
Skinks are ectotherms: they warm up from the sun and surroundings rather than making their own heat.
Many skinks in cooler climates brumate, the reptile equivalent of hibernation.
Skinks taste the air with their tongues and “smell” it with the vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth.
About a third of skink species give birth to live young, a much higher share than in other lizards.
On islands, lizards, skinks among them, often pollinate flowers and spread seeds.
Little brown skinks are among the smallest reptiles in North America.
Most skinks can blink, unlike snakes and most geckos.
Male five-lined skinks develop orange-red heads in the breeding season.
Red-headed skinks are not venomous. No skink is.
The three-toed skink of Italy has four legs, each with three tiny toes.
Some scientists split the skinks into nine separate families; others keep them as one.
Blue-tongued skinks in the UK and Europe are captive-bred. Australia does not allow commercial export of native wildlife.
Australia’s Tiliqua blue-tongues were listed on CITES Appendix III in 2022, and the pygmy blue-tongue moved to Appendix I in 2023.
Pet blue-tongues commonly live 15–20 years.
The sandfish’s nose has a built-in filter that keeps sand out of its airways as it breathes underground.

Test yourself with the quiz →