Reptilia · Squamata
Coeranoscincus frontalisde Vis, 1888
Limbless Snake-tooth Skink
Photograph by Matt B, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A burrowing, active by day or night, meat-eating skink from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 290 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Coeranoscincus
- Grows to
- 290mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Fossorial
Longer than 99% of all skinks anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 24 to 500 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
27 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 290mm11.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 43.94g1.6 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 16.98g0.6 oz
max 290 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 512–937m
- Range size
- 18,947km²
Invertebrates, mainly earthworms (Greer 2005)
Nocturnal (Swanson 2007), Probably cathemeral. This fossorial species is mostly found under logs. However, Keith McDonald (ex Queensland National Parks research scientist; pers. Comm.) tells me that a fellow ranger at Mt Spec told him that he had found them moving around in leaf litter by day, and Scott Eipper (pers. comm.) ran over one in a carpark at night. These seem to be the only direct observations of activity either by day or night. Swanson (2007) seems to be an unreliable source.
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- De Vis
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1888
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
3 ft 10 in × 3 ft 10 in × 2 ft 5 in(116 × 116 × 73 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 5.75 in (15 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 11.5 in (290 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Limbless Snake-tooth Skink. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
6kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 44 g, the heaviest recorded for Limbless Snake-tooth Skink — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — Smallest clutch recorded
- — Largest clutch recorded
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Scincidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Coeranoscincus frontalis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/coeranoscincus-frontalis
@misc{coeranoscincus_frontalis_2026,
title = {Coeranoscincus frontalis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/coeranoscincus-frontalis}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.