All Angles Creatures
Squamata · ScincidaeEntry 10,478 of 21,572

Reptilia · Squamata

Isopachys rouleiAngel, 1920

Chonburi Snake Skink

No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.

A burrowing skink from the Oriental region, reaching 109 mm snout to vent.

Once published as Ophioscincus roulei — those names reach this page.

ReptiliaSquamataScincidaeIsopachys

Grows to
109mm
greatest recorded
Lives
Fossorial
Weighs up to
4.05g
greatest
Red List
Least Concern
Body length across Scincidae

Longer than 82% of all skinks anyone has measured.

82% of 1,710 species are smaller18% 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

23 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Two of these figures disagree

Body mass (adult female, mean) is given as 18.1, and Body mass (greatest) as 4.1 — but an average female cannot outweigh the heaviest animal recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.

Standing in the world

Still living
Extant
Conservation status
Least Concern
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2017

The animal itself

Limbs
None
Venomous
No
Fangs
None

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
109mm4.25 in

max 109 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
4.05g0.14 oz

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

Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed
18.09g0.64 oz

How it lives

Where it lives
Fossorial

Sand Swimming / subfossorial (Chan-ard et al. 2015)/ burrowing (Greer 1973)

Habitat
Forest
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Region
Oriental
Mainland or island
Mainland
Range size
4988km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Viviparous

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Scincoidea
Subspecies
No
Described by
Angel
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1920
Type locality
Thailand

Keeping one

17 in × 17 in × 10.5 in(44 × 44 × 27 cm)

Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 2.25 in (6 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 4.25 in (109 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 Chonburi Snake Skink. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.

Feeding

1kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 4 g, the heaviest recorded for Chonburi Snake 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
  • Diet
  • Eats arthropods
  • Eats vertebrates
  • Eats plant matter
  • How it hunts
  • Active
  • 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
  • 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
  • Highest 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). Isopachys roulei. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/isopachys-roulei

@misc{isopachys_roulei_2026,
  title  = {Isopachys roulei},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/isopachys-roulei}
}

Sources

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