Reptilia · Squamata
Trachylepis brevicollisWiegmann, 1837
Sudan Mabuya
Photograph by Hopeland, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, active by day or night, meat-eating skink from the Afrotropic region, reaching 180 mm snout to vent.
Also called Short-necked Skink.
Once published as Mabuya brevicollis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Trachylepis
- Grows to
- 180mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 2.4years
Longer than 95% 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
42 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
- 2.4years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 34.5–35.1°C94–95 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 34.1°C93 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 33.4–34.8°C92–95 °F
Slavens and Slavens 1999
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 180mm7 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 112.7mm4.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 112.7mm4.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 35.83mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 36mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 134.6g4.7 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 2.2g0.08 oz
max 180 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
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1500m
- Range size
- 3,076,873km²
- Density
- 7per hectare
Arthropods and vertebrates (e.g., a mouse, Spawls et al. 2018, see also Spawls et al. 2023), "insects and other arthropods, but may also eat plant material and small vertebrates" (Carranza et al. 2021, see also Pinho et al. 2023b)
(e.g., Gardner 2013, Carranza et al. 2021) / sit and wait (Bowker 1984)
Diurnal, also nocturnal in the hot season (Schatti and Desvoignes 1999), Diurnal (Colacicco et al. 2018, Grossman et al. 2020 (Trachylepis cf. brevicollis), Carranza et al. 2021, Malonza and Bwong 2023, Pinho et al. 2023b)
(e.g., Carranza et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)/ mostly terrestrial but will climb (Spawls et al. 2018, Malonza and Bwong 2023), terrestrial (Foster et al. 2018) / "terricolous, but well able to climb on rocks and, rarely, on trees to 1–1.5 m above ground" Grossman et al. 2020 (Trachylepis cf. brevicollis)
0 to about 1500 (Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023), 0-900 (Carranza et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–11eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1.5per year
e.g., Spawls et al. 2023
4 (Spawls et al. 2018), 2-11, mean 6 (Grossman et al. 2020; Trachylepis cf. brevicollis; n=6), 3-11 (Carranza et al. 2021), 4-5 (Spawls et al. 2023, n = 2), 6 (Aloufi et al. 2023, n = 1)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Wiegmann
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1837
- Type locality
- Eritrea
Keeping one
2 ft 4 in × 2 ft 4 in × 17.5 in(72 × 72 × 45 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 7 in (180 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 94–95 °F (34.5–35.1 °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.
15kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 135 g, the heaviest recorded for Sudan Mabuya — 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
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest 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). Trachylepis brevicollis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-brevicollis
@misc{trachylepis_brevicollis_2026,
title = {Trachylepis brevicollis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-brevicollis}
}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.