Reptilia · Squamata
Mochlus fernandiBurton, 1836
African fire skink
Photograph by User:Haplochromis, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating skink from the Afrotropic region, reaching 180 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Lepidothyris fernandi, Lygosoma fernandi, Riopa fernandi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Mochlus
- Grows to
- 180mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 10years
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
- 2012
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 10years
Slavens and Slavens 1999: 2, Hauschild and Gassner 1995: >5, "Hughes (1988) supposed a longevity of L. fernandi of one and a half years, whereas Mudrack (1976) mentioned five years. Moss (2007) gave proof of a longevity of more than ten years." (Wagner et al. 2009)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 180mm7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 107.3mm4.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 107.3mm4.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 30mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 30mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 134.6g4.7 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 54.8g1.9 oz
max 180 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
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1700m
- Range size
- 2,980,291km²
Arthropods and lizards (Akani et al. 2002, Segniagbeto et al. 2015), mostly arthropods, few earthworms, snails, lizards and berries (Eniang et al. 2014), arthropods (Loveridge 1938)
Cathemeral / Diurnal (Vonesh 1998, Wagner et al. 2009 - who note that older literature described them as nocturnal) / "sually active in the evening, and most of the specimens spend the whole day inside their burrows" (Segniagbeto et al. 2015)
Leaf Litter and Terrestrial (semi aquatic? Taylor and Weyer 1958), terrestrial (Foster et al. 2018)
1080-1700 (Ineich et al. 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 10eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 8–12eggs
8 (Hauschild and Gassner 1995)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Mochlus fernandi fernandi (BURTON 1836) Mochlus fernandi harlani (HALLOWELL 1845)
- Described by
- Burton
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1836
- Type locality
- Equatorial Guinea
Keeping one
2 ft 4 in × 2 ft 4 in × 17.5 in(72 × 72 × 45 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 in (180 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 African fire 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 135 g, the heaviest recorded for African fire 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
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 1 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Flank colourbreeder consensus
How red and how extensive the flank colour is, and how boldly the black and white barring shows. Varies with the individual and brightens with condition.
Worth knowing. No single-gene morph is established in this species, and fire skinks are still largely wild-caught imports rather than captive-bred, so no morph scene has developed.
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 at hatching
- — 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
- — 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). Mochlus fernandi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/mochlus-fernandi
@misc{mochlus_fernandi_2026,
title = {Mochlus fernandi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/mochlus-fernandi}
}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.