Reptilia · Squamata
Liopholis whitiiLacépède, 1804
White's Skink
Photograph by jirau, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 113 mm snout to vent.
Also called White's Rock-skink.
Once published as Egernia whitii — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Liopholis
- Grows to
- 113mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 13.7years
Longer than 84% 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
- 2017
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 13.7years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 33.7°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 33°C91 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 31.9–34.1°C89–93 °F
While et al. 2009, Chapple 2003: 10; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 12.75, Greer 2005: 3, Brown 2012 & Whiting and While 2017: 13, Hauschild and Gassner 1995: 8 in captivity; Petzold 2008: 13, 7 months & 25 days; Brown et al. 2018: 8.5 years; (Geoff While, plenary talk, WCH9, 2020, Dunedin): pairs maintained for up to 10 years (so at least 12 years given it takes 2 to mature) in nature
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 113mm4.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 87.9mm3.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 87.9mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 38.5mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 38.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 31.22g1.1 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.09g0.04 oz
max 113 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
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, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1720m
- Range size
- 832,101km²
Omnivorous (e.g., Robertson and Coventry 2019)/insects (Brown)/ Arthropods (Greer 2005)/opportunistic, primarily insectivorous (Chapple 2005), a subadult Acritoscincus duperreyi (Dissanayake 2020)
Mesquita et al. 2016
e.g., Swan 2020, pers. Obs.; heliothermic: Robertson and Coventry 2019
Saxicolous, Terrestrial, use burrow system for retreat / terrestrial (Michael and Lindenmayer 2010, Mesquita et al. 2016, Robertson and Coventry 2019, Swan 2020, pers. obs., Whiting and While 2017)
a few meters above sea level (Meiri, pers obs.), 500-600 to 1650 (Pengilley 1972), 0-1400 (Senior et al. 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 2.9eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–5eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.3–3.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.7–1per year
- First breeds at
- 24–48months
1-4 (Hutchinson et al. 2001, Whiting and While 2017), 1-5 (Brown 2012, Pengilley 1972, Robertson and Coventry 2019, Milton 1987), mean 3.5 (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), 3-4 (Dave Chapple pers. comm., 27.2.2019; n=2)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Lacépède
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1804
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
18 in × 18 in × 11 in(45 × 45 × 28 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 4.5 in (113 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 93 °F (33.7 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. 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.
4kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 31 g, the heaviest recorded for White's 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.
Morphs
1 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 0 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Skin colourpeer reviewed
- Avian predation intensity as a driver of clinal variation in colour morph frequency. — J Anim Ecol 2018
- Genetic-evidence for sympatric differentiation between 2 color morphs of the skink Egernia whitii. — Australian Journal of Zoology 1990
- Evolution and maintenance of colour pattern polymorphism in Liopholis (Squamata: Scincidae). — Australian Journal of Zoology 2008
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
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — 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). Liopholis whitii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liopholis-whitii
@misc{liopholis_whitii_2026,
title = {Liopholis whitii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/liopholis-whitii}
}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.