Reptilia · Squamata
Oligosoma polychromaPatterson & Daugherty, 1990
Southern grass skink
Photograph by Aalbert Rebergen, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous skink from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 80 mm snout to vent.
Also called common New Zealand skink.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Oligosoma
- Grows to
- 80mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 6years
Longer than 59% 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
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 6years
Slavens and Slavens 1999: 6, 3-4 in nature, 6 in captivity (Cree and Hare 2016, van Winkel et al. 2019)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 80mm3.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 59.2mm2.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 59.2mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 31mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 31mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 10.56g0.37 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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 Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 160m
- Range size
- 177,598km²
- Density
- 200–9245per hectare
mainly invertebrates and "some fruit" (Patterson and Daugherty 1990) / arthropods, plants accidentally ingested (Freeman 1997) / "The species is a dietary generalist, consuming a wide range of arthropod prey and the fleshy fruits of divaricating shrubs when seasonally available", Lettink et al. 2011, fruit and invertebrates (Hare et al. 2016), small invertebrates (van Winkel et al. 2019)
e.g., van Winkel et al. 2019
Diurnal, strongly heliothermic (van Winkel et al. 2019)
Leaf litter/terrestrial (van Winkel et al. 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–10eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.8–5.8eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 18–24months
annual, 5.8 eggs on average, max 10 live young (Lettink et al. 2011), max 8 (Tingley et al. 2013), Cree and Hare 2016 (mean 5.13, max 10), 3-6 (van Winkel et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Patterson & Daugherty
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1990
- Type locality
- New Zealand
Keeping one
12.5 in × 12.5 in × 7.75 in(32 × 32 × 20 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 3.25 in (80 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 Southern grass 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 11 g, the heaviest recorded for Southern grass 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
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — 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
- — 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). Oligosoma polychroma. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oligosoma-polychroma
@misc{oligosoma_polychroma_2026,
title = {Oligosoma polychroma},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/oligosoma-polychroma}
}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.