Reptilia · Squamata
Trachylepis quinquetaeniataLichtenstein, 1823
Rainbow Mabuya
Photograph by Ashwin Viswanathan, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, omnivorous skink from the Afrotropic region, reaching 151 mm snout to vent.
Also called African Five-lined Skink.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Trachylepis
- Grows to
- 151mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 4.8years
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
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
- 4.8years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 35.6°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 35.3°C96 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 35.3°C
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
- 151mm6 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 81.5mm3.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 81.7mm3.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 29.9mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 31.8mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 77.56g2.7 oz
max 151 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
- Saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2200m
- Range size
- 7,784,034km²
- Density
- 2per hectare
Omnivorous / invertebrates and small lizards (Dunger 1972) / insects, fruits, seeds, earthworm and a skink (Broadley and Bauer 1999), see also Spawls et al. 2018 / arthropods (Simbotwe 1980), insects, plants in 40% of females but no males (Kadry et al. 2017), insectivorous (Masson et al. 2023), invertebrates, one Congo specimen had fruit and an earthworm and one Tanzanian ate a lizard tail (Spawls et al. 2023)
e.g., Bowker 1984, Mesquita et al. 2016
e.g., Rachid et al. 2016, Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023
mainly Saxicolous but also Terrestrial and Arboreal (Dunger 1972 see also Spawls et al. 2023) / saxicolous (Dunham et al. 1988, Chirio 2009, Howard and Hailey 1999, Mesquita et al. 2016, Spawls et al. 2018, Malonza and Bwong 2023), terrestrial (Foster et al. 2018, Kadry et al. 2017)/arboreal (Masson et al. 2023)
350 (Rachid et al. 2016), 0-1600 (Spawls et al. 2018), max 1600 (Malonza and Bwong 2023), 0-2200 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 4.8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–15eggs
- Mean clutch
- 4.8eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 2per year
- First breeds at
- 15months
oviparous only, not viviparous (Simbotwe 1980), oviparous (Camilla Whittington & James Van Dyke, pers comm. July 2021)
mean 4.8 (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), 3-10 (Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Trachylepis quinquetaeniata quinquetaeniata (LICHTENSTEIN 1823) Trachylepis quinquetaeniata riggenbachi (STERNFELD 1917) Trachylepis quinquetaeniata scharica (STERNFELD 1917)
- Described by
- Lichtenstein
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1823
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
24 in × 24 in × 15 in(60 × 60 × 38 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 6 in (151 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 96 °F (35.6 °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.
9kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 78 g, the heaviest recorded for Rainbow 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — 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 quinquetaeniata. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-quinquetaeniata
@misc{trachylepis_quinquetaeniata_2026,
title = {Trachylepis quinquetaeniata},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-quinquetaeniata}
}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.