Reptilia · Squamata
Trachylepis variaPeters, 1867
Variable skink
Identification not confirmed. One observer recorded this animal as this species and no one has since agreed, so the photograph may show a different animal.
Photograph by Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating skink from the Afrotropic region, reaching 71 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Mabuya damarana, Mabuya isselii, Mabuya varia, Trachylepis isselii, Trachylepis issellii — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Trachylepis
- Grows to
- 71mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 1.9years
Longer than only 49% 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
37 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 1.9years
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28.1°C
23 months (Jacobsen 1982), usually 15-17 months (Pietersen et al. 2021)
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 71mm2.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 59.9mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 21.5mm0.8 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 7.26g0.26 oz
max 71 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 4000m
- Range size
- 7,946,200km²
Invertebrates (insects mainly, Branch 2014) and sometimes skinks (Broadley 2008), arthropods (Spawls et al. 2018, van Huyssteen 2023, Pietersen et al. 2021 for albopunctata and the nominate)
(Kirchhof et al. 2010), Active foraging (van Huyssteen 2023) / captures insects after a short dash from cover (Branch 2014)
e.g., Spawls et al. 2018, Rabiega 2014, van Huyssteen 2023, Pietersen et al. 2021 for the nominate and albopunctata, Conradie et al. 2022c for albopunctata, Spawls et al. 2023, for T isselii, Spawls et al. 2023
Terrestrial, Saxicolous and Arboreal (generalized terrestria, Howard and Hailey 1999), terrestrial, sometimes climb (Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023, for T isselii, Spawls et al. 2023), terrestrial (Foster et al. 2018), predominanty terrestrial (Pietersen et al. 2021 for both varia and albopunctata), terrestrial (van Huyssteen 2023, Malonza and Bwong 2023)
0-3600 (Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023), 0-4000 (Malonza and Bwong 2023), 1000-2500 (Spawls et al. 2023 for Trachylepis issellii/isselii)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Mixed
- Average clutch
- 7.36eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–14eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.6–9.1eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 8months
both Viviparous and Oviparous populations exist (Branch 1998, Broadley 2000, Branch 2016), viviparous (Loveridge 1920, Branch 2014), Vivipary more common (Aaron Bauer, pers. comm, December 2013), viviparous (Camilla Whittington & James Van Dyke, pers comm. July 2021)
6-12 eggs, mean 9.11 (Jacobsen 1982), 4-7, mean 5.6 (Loveridge 1920), 1-14 (Aaron Bauer, pers. comm, December 2013), 3-10 (Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018, Spawls et al. 2023), 6-12 eggs (Branch 2016; for the oviparous ones), 2-4 (Pietersen et al. 2021 for varia), 3 live young (n = 1, Malonza and Bwong 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1867
- Type locality
- Mozambique
Keeping one
11 in × 11 in × 11 in(28 × 28 × 28 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 2.75 in (71 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Variable skink. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
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 Variable 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 · 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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest 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 varia. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-varia
@misc{trachylepis_varia_2026,
title = {Trachylepis varia},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/trachylepis-varia}
}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.