All Angles Creatures
Squamata · ScincidaeEntry 16,098 of 21,572
Bermuda Skink, Plestiodon longirostris

Reptilia · Squamata

Plestiodon longirostrisCope, 1861

Bermuda Skink

Photograph by Alison Copeland, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A rock-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Neotropic region, reaching 94 mm snout to vent.

Also called Bermuda Rock Lizard, Longnose Skink.

Once published as Eumeces longirostris — those names reach this page.

Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Plestiodon

Grows to
94mm
greatest recorded
Eats
Carnivorous
Active
Diurnal
Lives up to
27years
Body length across Scincidae

Longer than 72% of all skinks anyone has measured.

72% of 1,710 species are smaller28% 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

34 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
Critically Endangered
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2020
Population trend
Decreasing
Red List criteria
B1ab(iii,v)

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None
Longest recorded life
27years

Davenport et al. 2001: "individuals may live more than 27 years."

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
94mm3.75 in

Shai Meiri, unpublished

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
68mm2.75 in
Largest female · snout to vent
68mm2.75 in

snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length

Hatchling length · snout to vent
32mm1.25 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed
17.52g0.62 oz

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

How it lives

Diet
Carnivorous

"reported as fruit eaters and/or seed dispersers." (Valido and Olesen 2019) - but Wikipedia says "small invertebrates such as cockroaches or woodlices, but also on small terrestrial crustaceans." and Davenport et al. 2001 writes" The Bermudian skink is believed to be strictly insectivorous as a hatchling, but juveniles, subadults and adults also take substantial quantities of carrion, especially that associated with sea bird nests (in particular the cahow Pterodroma cahow and the white-tailed tropic bird or longtail Phaethon lepturus). Carrion taken includes broken eggs, dead chicks, and regurgitated fish and squid (Wingate, 1965; Garber, 1988; D.B. Wingate, pers. comm.).", "primarily consume terrestrial and leaf-litter arthropods (L. Kitson unpub. data). Wingate (1965) and Verill (1902) noted that ants (Formicidae)—specifically Pheidole megacephala and woodlice (Isopoda) comprised the greatest proportion of the skink’s diet... Additionally, P. longirostris opportunistically scavenge on a variety of nonarthropod food items [e.g., broken seabird eggs, carrion, cactus fruit (Opuntia sp.)]" (Stroude et al. 2017)

Active
Diurnal

(Davenport et al. 2001), "Activity levels were highest in the hour following each basking peak with 08:00 h (activity seen on a mean of 7 ± 2 days) and 16:00 h (activity seen on a mean of 9 ± 2 days) being the hours with highest observed activity levels (Figure 2). Low levels of activity were also observed in hours of darkness (21:00–05:00 h)." (Williams et al. 2022)

Where it lives
Saxicolous

rocks (Wikipedia)

Habitat
Shrubland
Biome
Tropical & Subtropical Coniferous Forests
Active season · months of the year
12months
Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Found only on islands
Highest it lives · above sea level
10m

coastal (Wikipedia)

Range size
63km²

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous

e.g., Williams et al. 2022

Average clutch
5eggs
Eggs or young per clutch
3–7eggs

3-7 (Davenport et al. 2001, who then write 5-6), 3 and 5 (Williams et al. 2022; n = 2)

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Scincoidea
Subspecies
No
Described by
Cope
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1861
Type locality
Bermuda

Keeping one

Bermuda Skink is assessed as Critically 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.

15 in × 15 in × 9.25 in(38 × 38 × 24 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.

Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.

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 3.75 in (94 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 Bermuda 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 18 g, the heaviest recorded for Bermuda 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 · snout to vent
  • — 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 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
  • — 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). Plestiodon longirostris. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-longirostris

@misc{plestiodon_longirostris_2026,
  title  = {Plestiodon longirostris},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-longirostris}
}

Sources

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