Reptilia · Squamata
Simiscincus aurantiacusSadlier & Bauer, 1997
Orange-bellied Burrowing Skink
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal skink from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 87 mm snout to vent.
Also called Orange-Bellied Burrowing Skink.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Simiscincus
- Grows to
- 87mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives
- Cryptic, terrestrial
- Weighs up to
- 13.74g
- greatest
Longer than 66% 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
30 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
- Vulnerable
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(ii,iii,v)+2ab(ii,iii,v)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 87mm3.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 80.5mm3.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 13.74g0.48 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Cryptic, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 150–500m
- Range size
- 1293km²
Nocturnal?, Aaron Bauer, pers. comm. 20.2.2019; Sadlier et al. 2018: "they were most likely active either late in the previous day and/or at night. Such on-surface activity late in the day and/or at night may account for the presence of scales of Simiscincus aurantiacus in rodent stomach contents studies", Glenn Shea, pers. comm. (April 2020): "Info from Ross Sadlier (pers. comm.): only two collected by day, found under rocks and logs. All others collected on sticky traps on the forest floor. These were set in the late afternoon and checked early the next morning. So effectively active sometime between late afternoon and at night. So at least nocturnal, but could be cathemeral. Should categorise the same as Graciliscincus."
cryptic (Sadlier and Bauer 1997), Sadlier et al. 2018: "Simiscincus aurantiacus has not been observed active and only two have been found by searching under sheltering sites, both in the interior of humid forest habitat… The remaining records for the species are from individuals captured on glue traps set on forest floor or among rocks and logs in forest habitat, or, in or next to openings in the exposed and broken cuirasse cap in canopied maquis forest habitat."
IUCN (150 to 500)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–4eggs
- Mean clutch
- 3.33eggs
Aaron Bauer, pers. comm. 20.2.2019
2-4 (Aaron Bauer, pers. comm. 20.2.2019), 2-4, mean 3 enlarged follicles (Sadlier et al. 2018; n = 4, whoch they think reflect selled eggs well: "Three large shelled eggs were recorded in an individual collected October (R.172096—SVL 80 mm) and four from an individual collected in early Decembe", so 19 in 6 animals)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Sadlier & Bauer
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1997
- Type locality
- New Caledonia
Keeping one
Orange-bellied Burrowing Skink is assessed as Vulnerable 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.
13.5 in × 13.5 in × 8.5 in(35 × 35 × 22 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 3.5 in (87 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 Orange-bellied Burrowing Skink. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 14 g, the heaviest recorded for Orange-bellied Burrowing 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 female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — 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
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — 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). Simiscincus aurantiacus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/simiscincus-aurantiacus
@misc{simiscincus_aurantiacus_2026,
title = {Simiscincus aurantiacus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/simiscincus-aurantiacus}
}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.