Let’s Learn About Skinks!
Part 1
What’s a skink?
A skink is a lizard in the family Scincidae. This is the second largest taxonomic group of lizards, the first being geckos. 28.5% of lizard species are geckos and 25% are skinks. There’s a lot of lizard species (6,622 species), but most are from various families.
This is a graph I made using iNaturalist’s list of lizard species per infraorder/family.
Skinks are generally categorized as having a body low to the ground, short limbs, and a lack of obvious neck.
Skink on the left, “average” lizard on right.
Skinks are found all over the world, leading to them being one of the most diverse families of lizards. Here are some examples of the large variety of skinks and their adaptations.
Limbless Skinks, Subfamily Acontinae
These skinks lack limbs, have small heads and smooth bodies to easily live underground. Some have even evolved to barely have eyes, like the Cuvier’s Blind Legless Skink, as is doesnt need eyesight in soil/sand.
Latast's Snake Skink, Ophiomorus latastii
Cuvier's Blind Legless Skink, Typhlosaurus caecus
Solomon Island Skink, Corucia zebrata
Also called the Prehensile-tailed Skink, this skink lives up in the trees using its long forelimbs, long fingers/toes, and its prehensile tail! Prehensile means grasping, so just like a monkey tail is can grab onto branches.
Shingleback Skink/Lizard, Tiliqua rugosa
This skink has tough thick scales to protect itself from predators. They have a blunt tail that resembles the skink’s head, this is an example if automimicry (where an animal mimics another part of the body). This confuses predators, as they dont know which end of the skink is the head.
Another adaptation of the shingleback skink, and other skinks in the genus Tiliqua, have a blue tongue. This blue tongue is used to startle and frighten predators. When a genus Tiliqua skink feels threatened, it opens its mouth and sticks out its tongue and hisses. This sudden bright color of a dull colored animal can be very startling for a predator. Espically for animals that can see UV light. As some research suggests that blue tongued skink may also have UV coloration in the back of their tongues. Which would give a very bright sudden color if the skink sticks its tomgue out really far. Which I think would be even more startling! The example picture below is that of a Blotched Blue-tongued Skink, Tiliqua nigrolutea.
Sandfish Skink, Scincus scincus
A skink well adapted to burrowing in the desert, the sandfish skink has small limbs and tail and a pointy shovel-like snout. Being able to easily bury itself into the sand allows the skink to stay cool in a hot climate.