Trachylepis striata striata
Striped Skinks are medium-sized lizards growing to 11cm long (excluding the tail, including the tail up to 25cm) and inhabiting a wide variety of habitats, from mangrove swamps to arid bushveld. They are diurnal and feed primarily on small insects and other small invertebrates which they catch among rocks or in trees. They can “drop” their tails when caught to escape predators and adults without tails, or with regrowing tails, are often seen.
Female Striped Skinks give birth to litters of 3-9 live young during the summer months.
in South Africa, the Striped Skink occurs in north-east Kwazulu Natal and the Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo. They are commonly seen in towns and game reserve camps and can become quite habituated to humans. Outside of our borders they can be found in Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and northwards to Ethiopia.
DeWetsWild 
How do you tell if a Striped Skink is male or female?
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I’m afraid unless you encounter an obviously pregnant female or see them mating there’s no easy way to tell the sexes apart without inspecting them “in hand”, Penny.
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Love the pics
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Thank you very much, Penny.
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Cute!
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Most certainly!
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I once had one of these live in my bed for a few days. I found it clinging to the blanket when I made the bed and left it there. The cat knew it was there but couldn’t get at it. Also once, one got onto my handbag and I couldn’t prize it loose as I was scared I’d hurt it. Being a cold-blooded animal it had to ‘thaw out’ a bit before it could move away by itself. So I took the lizard with to town, being careful of squashing it all along and left the bag and lizard in the sun when I got to a place I could safely do so. I couldn’t wait for it to warm up first here at home as I had an appointment.
I have a photograph here of another kind of lizard that I haven’t been able to identify. The cat brought it in but I rescued it from her. Is there a way I could send you the pic and perhaps you could help identify it?
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Good on you for taking such good care of your cold-blooded visitors, Petru!
You’re welcome to send the pic of the lizard to dewetswild(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)za – I’ll gladly have a go at identifying it for you (please also just remind me where you are living, as often the distribution is key to the ID)
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Oh fantastic, I’ll find it and send it along!
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You got some nice photos of these beautiful little ones.
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Thank you very much, P J B!
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Lovely photographs as always.
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Thank you very much, Anne!
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They look like they are keen to share your tent. Aren’t they beautiful!
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They can become habituated to having humans in close proximity very easily!
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Beautiful little lizards.😊 They seems not to be so shy. We have 3 species of lizards, about same size as them and they are so shy.
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Only 3 species of lizards, John? Is it because of the cold weather? These guys can be very shy but quickly become used to having humans around if they are left alone.
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they look very similar to what we get here
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The different kinds of skink can be difficult to distinguish!
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True
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Interesting little guys and quite pretty too.
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There’s so much of interest and beauty around us if we only care to look!
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