Reptilia · Squamata
Tropidoscincus variabilisBavay, 1869
Southern Whiptailed 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 Lennart Hudel, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 95 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Leiolopisma variabile, Tropidoscincus roehssi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Tropidoscincus
- Grows to
- 95mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than 73% 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
35 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Body mass (adult female, mean) is given as 26.1, and Body mass (greatest) as 18.1 — but an average female cannot outweigh the heaviest animal recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 95mm3.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 78.2mm3 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 78.2mm3 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 33mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 33mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 18.11g0.64 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasureddisputed
- 26.1g0.92 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 500–1000m
- Range size
- 4549km²
Arthropods, gastropods, some plant material (Shea et al. 2009)
Active (Cavalcanti et al. 2023)
e.g., Sadlier 1987
adults Terrestrial, juveniles semi-Arboreal
lowland to 900 (Sadlier 1987, lowest he actually mentions is 500)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2.8eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2–4eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2.8eggs
2-3 (Sadlier 1987)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Bavay
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1869
- Type locality
- New Caledonia
Keeping one
15 in × 15 in × 9.25 in(38 × 38 × 24 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 3.75 in (95 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 Southern Whiptailed 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.
3kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 18 g, the heaviest recorded for Southern Whiptailed 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
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — 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
- — 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). Tropidoscincus variabilis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tropidoscincus-variabilis
@misc{tropidoscincus_variabilis_2026,
title = {Tropidoscincus variabilis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tropidoscincus-variabilis}
}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.