Common garden skink
| Common garden skink | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Subphylum: | Vertebrata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata (paraphyletic) |
| Infraorder: | Scincomorpha |
| Family: | Scincidae |
| Subfamily: | Lygosominae |
| Genus: | Lampropholis |
| Species: | L. guichenoti |
| Binomial name | |
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Lampropholis guichenoti (A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1839) |
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| Synonyms | |
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The common garden skink or pale-flecked garden sunskink (Lampropholis guichenoti) is a species of small common skink endemic to Australia.
The specific name, guichenoti, is in honor of French zoologist Antoine Alphone Guichenot.
In Australia L. guichenoti is often seen in suburban gardens in Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, and Brisbane, but also is common across most of Southern Australia and some of New South Wales.
Lampropholis guichenoti can grow to a maximum of 14 cm, but rarely exceeds 9cm. According to statistics, the average common garden skink lives up to 2–3 years. The garden skink usually has a browny black colour and sometimes may appear a dark shade of red when bathing in the sun. They have small sharp teeth which easily slice through smaller prey. Even wild individuals are very docile, and rarely bite humans when touched or picked up.
The female pale-flecked garden sunskink has a yellowish, almost orange tinge to her underside, however the males have a light grey tinge to their underside. Females are often bigger than the males in size.
Garden skinks feed on larger invertebrates, including crickets, moths, slaters, earthworms, flies, grubs and caterpillars, grasshoppers, cockroaches, earwigs, slugs, dandelions, small spiders, ladybeetles, ants and many other small insects, which makes them a very helpful animal around the garden. They can also feed on fruit and vegetables, but the vegetables have to be cooked for the skink to be able to eat it. Skinks especially love bananas and strawberries etc. (no citrus fruit). Garden skinks rely purely on the movement of their prey when hunting. When hunting, the skinks will either hide and wait for prey to come by or actively pursue it (this depends on how hungry they are). Once they have caught their prey, they shake it around vigorously to kill it before swallowing it whole. Once they have had one meal, they begin to actively pursue prey for a short while with their newfound energy. Skinks only need one prey item per 4 or 5 days, but will eat every day if conditions are good, thus, making it an ideal pet for small children. They can eat worms if you drain the soil out of them with salt water because worms are too high in soil for them.
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Wikipedia