All Angles Creatures
Squamata · ScincidaeEntry 5,447 of 21,572
Bali Snake Eyed Skink, Cryptoblepharus balinensis

Reptilia · Squamata

Cryptoblepharus balinensisBarbour, 1911

Bali Snake Eyed Skink

Photograph by Eric Knight, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Oriental region, reaching 50 mm snout to vent.

Also called Balinese Snake-eyed Skink.

Once published as Cryptoblepharus sumbawanus — those names reach this page.

ReptiliaSquamataScincidaeCryptoblepharus

Grows to
50mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives
Arboreal
Body length across Scincidae

Longer than only 18% of all skinks anyone has measured.

18% of 1,710 species are smaller82% larger
24 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest500 mm

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
2019

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
50mm2 in

max 50 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Body mass · greatestcomputed
2.41g0.09 oz

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

Arthropods (Somaweera 2017)

How it hunts
Active foraging

Somaweera 2017

Active
Diurnal

Aaron Bauer, pers. comm, 4.5.16, Somaweera 2017

Where it lives
Arboreal

e.g., Somaweera 2017

Habitat
Forest
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Region
Oriental
Mainland or island
Found only on islands
Highest it lives · above sea level
900m

400-900 (Horner 2007)

Range size
149,874km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
Average clutch
2eggs

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Scincoidea
Subspecies
Cryptoblepharus balinensis balinensis BARBOUR 1911 Cryptoblepharus balinensis sumbawanus MERTENS 1928
Described by
Barbour
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1911
Type locality
Indonesia

Keeping one

7.75 in × 5 in × 7.75 in(20 × 13 × 20 cm)

Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.

The standard sizes climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.

Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.

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 2 in (50 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Bali Snake Eyed 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.

0kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 2 g, the heaviest recorded for Bali Snake Eyed 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 · adult female, mean
  • 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 the young develop
  • Gestation or incubation
  • 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
  • Population trend
  • Red List criteria
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Active in
  • Lowest it lives · above sea level

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). Cryptoblepharus balinensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cryptoblepharus-balinensis

@misc{cryptoblepharus_balinensis_2026,
  title  = {Cryptoblepharus balinensis},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cryptoblepharus-balinensis}
}

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  3. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.