Reptilia · Squamata
Pseudemoia pagenstecheriLindholm, 1901
Southern Grass Tussock Skink
Photograph by ttsquid, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 69 mm snout to vent.
Also called Southern Tussock Grass Skink.
Once published as Claireascincus pagenstecheri — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Pseudemoia
- Grows to
- 69mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than only 46% 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.
Two of these figures disagree
Body mass (adult female, mean) is given as 7, and Body mass (greatest) as 6.6 — but an average female cannot outweigh the heaviest animal recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 32.5°C
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 69mm2.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 54.5mm2.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 53.7mm2 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 22mm0.9 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 22mm0.9 in
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.21g0.01 oz
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 6.64g0.23 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed
- 6.98g0.25 oz
max 69 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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Grassland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 1460m
- Range size
- 250,687km²
invertebrates (Swanson 2007)
heliotherm, Robertson and Coventry 2019, Swan 2020
Terrestrial, climbs rocks and logs to bask (Greer 2005), leaf litter (Swan et al. 2017), predominantly terrestrial (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 6.55eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–11eggs
- Mean clutch
- 4.5–8.6eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 12–24months
approximately 5 (Michael and Lindenmayer 2010), 3-11, mean 7 (Hutchinson et al. 2001), Pengilley 1972 (3-7, mean 5 in the literature, 1-6 in his sample, table 45), 6-10, mean 8.5 (Dave Chapple pers. comm., 27.2.2019; n=5), 2-7 in highlands, 3-11 in lowlands (Robertson and Coventry 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Lindholm
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1901
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
11 in × 11 in × 6.75 in(28 × 28 × 17 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 2.75 in (69 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 91 °F (32.5 °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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 7 g, the heaviest recorded for Southern Grass Tussock 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
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — Clutches in a year
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest 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). Pseudemoia pagenstecheri. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pseudemoia-pagenstecheri
@misc{pseudemoia_pagenstecheri_2026,
title = {Pseudemoia pagenstecheri},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pseudemoia-pagenstecheri}
}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.