Reptilia · Squamata
Eurylepis taeniolataBlyth, 1854
Ribbon-Sided Skink
Photograph by Haplochromis, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
An active by day or night, meat-eating skink from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 178 mm snout to vent.
Also called Alpine Punjab Skink, Yellow-bellied Mole Skink.
Once published as Eumeces scutatus, Eumeces taeniolatus, Eurylepis taeniolatus, Mabouia taeniolata, Plestiodon scutatus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Eurylepis
- Grows to
- 177.8mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
Longer than 95% 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
33 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
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 177.8mm7 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 49mm2 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 51mm2 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 129.5g4.6 oz
max 177.8 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, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Grassland, Rocky, Shrubland, Wetlands
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 230–2900m
- Range size
- 1,825,887km²
- Density
- 5–6per hectare
Invertebrates ("Food consists of insects (beetles, particularly tiger beetles, butterflies, and orthopterans), spiders, and snails." Szczerbak 2003), arthropods and worms (Haider et al. 2019), arthropods worms and reptiles (Kamali 2020), arthropods (Singh et al. 2021)
Diurnal, sometimes active at night (Masroor 2012 quoting Minton 1966), Glenn Shea, pers. comm. (April 2020): "Cathemeral. Minton (1966) states: "these secretive lizards have been dug from burrows and found under rocks. Ocasionally they venture into the open. One was taken March 30 crossing a road about noon; another was collected on the road about an hour after sunset during intensely hot weather in late May.", cathemeral (Rodda 2020), diurnal (Kamali 2020)
Fossorial&Terrestrial (Masroor 2012) / fossorial (Deuti et al. 2020)
up to 2900 (Kamali 2020)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 5.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–8eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 30–36months
4-8 (Masroor 2012, Haider et al. 2019), 3-6 (Ataev et al. 1994), 3-6 (Szczerbak 2003)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Eurylepis taeniolatus arabicus (SZCZERBAK 1990) Eurylepis taeniolatus parthianicus (SZCZERBAK 1990) Eurylepis taeniolatus taeniolatus BLYTH 1854
- Described by
- Blyth
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1854
- Type locality
- Pakistan
Keeping one
2 ft 4 in × 2 ft 4 in × 17.5 in(71 × 71 × 45 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 3.5 in (9 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 7 in (177.8 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 Ribbon-Sided 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.
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 130 g, the heaviest recorded for Ribbon-Sided 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 · nose to tail
- — 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 it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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). Eurylepis taeniolata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eurylepis-taeniolata
@misc{eurylepis_taeniolata_2026,
title = {Eurylepis taeniolata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/eurylepis-taeniolata}
}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.