The Centralian blue-tongued skink or Centralian blue-tongue (''Tiliqua multifasciata'') is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

skink Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. Ski ...

, occurring predominantly in the far north-west corner of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It is one of six species belonging to the genus '' Tiliqua''; the

blue-tongued skink Blue-tongued skinks comprise the Australasian genus ''Tiliqua'', which contains some of the largest members of the skink family (Scincidae). They are commonly called blue-tongued lizards or simply blue-tongues or blueys in Australia. As suggeste ...

s and the shinglebacks.

Description

The Centralian blue-tongue is of a very robust build, short body and slender tail, and is among the largest 1% of species in the family Scincidae. Both the forelimb and hindlimb have five digits.

Colouring

The skink is predominantly pale brown to grey in colour with a series of nine or more orange-brown bands along the length of the body and tail. These darker coloured bands are much wider than the paler grey-brown interspaces but are at their narrowest along the mid-dorsal region of the skink. There is a distinguishing black stripe surrounding the eye and extending to just above the ear, and upper-hind areas of limbs are also black. The skink is pale cream to white on the underside.

Distribution

The geographical distribution of the blue-tongued skink lies throughout the far north-west corner of New South Wales and South Australia, and centrally throughout Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. In general, habitats include a variety of arid and semi-arid stony and red sandy spinifex vegetated areas.

Behaviour

Like many other reptilian species, the blue-tongued is a fairly sedentary terrestrial creature. It is a ground-dwelling, diurnal species and displacements are relatively short (less than 20 metres) and on average the total distance travelled each day can fall between 122 and 245 metres.

Diet

Analyses of stomach contents have shown that the blue-tongue feeds on a combination of seeds, insects, livestock dung and some vertebrate and invertebrate material such as that of bird or other reptilian remains (i.e. fragments of bone, loose feathers).

Reproduction

Along with the other five species of the same genus, the Centralian blue-tongued skink is a

viviparous Among animals, viviparity is development of the embryo inside the body of the parent. This is opposed to oviparity which is a reproductive mode in which females lay developing eggs that complete their development and hatch externally from the m ...

species – it bears between two and 10 live young in a single litter.

Threats

The geographical location of the skink sees one of its major threats to be ingestion of the invasive and toxic

cane toad The cane toad (''Rhinella marina''), also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad native to South and mainland Central America, but which has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania ...

, but it is also under pressures from other anthropogenic processes such as fire and habitat fragmentation. However, the species is still currently listed as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q669230 Tiliqua Skinks of Australia Endemic fauna of Australia Reptiles described in 1919 Taxa named by Richard Sternfeld