Reptilia · Squamata
Scincus scincusLinnaeus, 1758
Sandfish Skink
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous skink from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 147 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Scincus
- Grows to
- 147mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 18years
Longer than 93% 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
41 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
- 2014
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 18years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 34.6°C94 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 32–37.2°C90–99 °F
10 years in captivity (Schleich et al. 1996, Amitai and Bouskila 2001, Hauschild and Gassner 1995, Werner 2016); Slavens and Slavens 1999: 5.25, 17 years for a specimen brought as adult (Ellis 2011), so I list 18
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 147mm5.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 94.5mm3.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 94.5mm3.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 71.29g2.5 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 21.4g0.75 oz
max 147 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
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 50m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 500m
- Range size
- 10,612,059km²
(e.g., Bar and Haimovitch 2012), arthropods, agamid, 11% plants (Werner 2016), mostly beetles, suspect vegetation and seeds intentionally ingested, also Acanthodactylus aegyptius in one stomach (Attum et al. 2004), invertebrates, small lizards and plants (Spawls et al. 2023)
e.g., Spawls et al. 2023
cathemeral - depending on season (Diurnal in winter, nocturnal in summer) / diurnal (Arnold 1984, Werner 1987, Hornby 1996, Attum et al. 2007, pers. obs.), diurnal, sometimes crepuscular (Spawls et al. 2023)
Terrestrial and sand swimming, fossorial (Masood and Asiry 2012), terrestrial & fossorial (pers. obs)
0 to about 500 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–8eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
either Oviparous (Schleich et al. Disi et al., Kohler 2005, Arnold and Leviton 1977, Spawls et al. 2023) or Viviparous (Bouskila and Amitai, Arbel, which say data are scant, Jongbloed 2000), in Eli Geffen's lizard presentation of the faunistics course it is pictured with its eggs,
6 (Werner 2016; n=1, same in Spawls et al. 2023), 8 (TAU experimental zoo data), Ber and Haimovich: 2-6
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Scincus scincus cucullatus WERNER 1914 Scincus scincus meccensis WIEGMANN 1837 Scincus scincus scincus (LINNAEUS 1758)
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Tunisia
Keeping one
23 in × 23 in × 14.5 in(59 × 59 × 37 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 3 in (7 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 5.75 in (147 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 94 °F (34.6 °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.
9kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 71 g, the heaviest recorded for Sandfish 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 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
- — 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
- — 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). Scincus scincus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/scincus-scincus
@misc{scincus_scincus_2026,
title = {Scincus scincus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/scincus-scincus}
}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.