Reptilia · Squamata
Oligosoma lineoocellatumDuméril, 1851
Canterbury spotted skink
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous skink from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 111 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Leiolopisma lineoocellatum — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Oligosoma
- Grows to
- 111mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 14years
Longer than 83% 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
39 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
- Endangered
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2018
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- A2be+4be; B2ab(iii,v)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 14years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 22°C72 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 22°C
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 111mm4.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 85.6mm3.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 85.6mm3.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 46.1mm1.75 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 46.1mm1.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 29.52g1 oz
max 111 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
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1700m
- Range size
- 10,139km²
- Density
- 938–8000per hectare
Arthropods / mostly animal matter (15.5% plants, Cooper and Vitt 2002) / invertebrates, carrion and occasionally nectar (Towns et al. 2002), omnivore (Tingley et al. 2013), fruit, nectar, reptiles and invertebrates (Hare et al. 2016, van Winkel et al. 2019), "Skinks in the O. lineoocellatum species group are known to feed on fruit, nectar, as well as prey from taxa including Arachnida, Diplopoda, Insecta, Malacostraca, Annelida and Mollusca" (Melzer et al. 2017)
Active (Cavalcanti et al. 2023)
strongly heliothermic, van Winkel et al. 2019
e.g., van Winkel et al. 2019
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–4eggs
- First breeds at
- 36months
max 4 (Tingley et al. 2013), 1-3 (van Winkel et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Duméril
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1851
- Type locality
- New Zealand
Keeping one
Canterbury spotted skink is assessed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
17.5 in × 17.5 in × 11 in(44 × 44 × 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 4.25 in (111 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 72 °F (22 °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.
4kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 30 g, the heaviest recorded for Canterbury spotted 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
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — 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
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest 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). Oligosoma lineoocellatum. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oligosoma-lineoocellatum
@misc{oligosoma_lineoocellatum_2026,
title = {Oligosoma lineoocellatum},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oligosoma-lineoocellatum}
}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.