Reptilia · Squamata
Eumeces schneideriiDaudin, 1802
Gold Skink
Photograph by Ltshears - Trisha M Shears, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 186 mm snout to vent.
Also called Orange‐tailed skink, Schneider's Skink.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Eumeces
- Grows to
- 186mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 22years
Longer than 96% 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
42 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
- 2016
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 22years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33.1°C92 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.1°C
Carey and Judge 2000: 9.3, at least 12, Amitai and Bouskila 2001; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 9.25, Hughes 1988: 18 in Jerusalem, Hauschild and Gassner 1995: 18; TAUZ: a specimen known to Barak as adult in 1995 is dying (June 2014), so 22 at least, Lang: 20 years in captivity
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 186mm7.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 137.2mm5.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 137.3mm5.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 53.5mm2 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 54mm2.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 149.2g5.3 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 41.14g1.5 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3.33g0.12 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 3–12months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1900m
- Density
- 10–12per hectare
Omnivorous: fruit, invertebrates (likes snails, Baier et al. 2009) and vertebrates (chalcides, ablepharus, trachylepis, Baier et al. 2009), mainly carnivorous (Baier et al. 2009), see Ataev et al. 1994, invertebrates and lizards ("insects (beetles, orthopterans, and lepidopterans) and other invertebrates (spiders, snails, and scorpions), and it sometimes feeds on other lizaids" Szczerbak 2003), insects, snails, lizards and at least in captivity: fruit (Werner 2016), details in Baker et al. 2021 (arthropods, a freshwater fish), invertebrates and occasionally lizards and blind snakes - and leaves, seeds nad berries (Dunayev and Orlova 2023, see also Spawls et al. 2023)
e.g., Cunningham 2010
e.g., SM pers. obs., Masood and Asiry 2012, Werner 2016, Candan et al. 2019, Kamali 2020, Dunayev and Orlova 2023, Spawls et al. 2023
e.g., pers. obs., Werner 2016, Candan et al. 2019
1164 (Candan et al. 2019), -253-1630 (Shai Meiri, pers. obs.), max 1400 (Showler 2018), 118-1800 (Cicek et al. 2015), up to 1200-1500 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023), 0 to at least 1600 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 11eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–20eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.12eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 30–36months
3-20 (Bar and Haimovitch 2012, Goldberg 2016), 3-6 (Ataev et al. 1994), 2-9 (Szczerbak 2003), 2-20 (Werner 2016), 5 (TAU experimental zoo data), 1-5 (Struijk 2003; 53 eggs in 17 clutches), 6-9 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023), 2-20 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Eumeces schneiderii barani KUMLUTAS, ARIKAN, ILGAZ & KASKA 2007 Eumeces schneiderii pavimentatus (GEOFFROY DE ST. HILAIRE 1827) Eumeces schneiderii princeps (EICHWALD 1839) Eumeces schneiderii schneiderii (DAUDIN 1802) Eumeces schneiderii zarudnyi (NIKOLSKY 1900)
- Described by
- Daudin
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1802
- Type locality
- Iran
Keeping one
2 ft 5 in × 2 ft 5 in × 18.5 in(74 × 74 × 47 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
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 7.25 in (186 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 92 °F (33.1 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
17kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 149 g, the heaviest recorded for Gold 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 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 male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
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). Eumeces schneiderii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eumeces-schneiderii
@misc{eumeces_schneiderii_2026,
title = {Eumeces schneiderii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eumeces-schneiderii}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.