The Gran Canaria skink (''Chalcides sexlineatus'') is a species of

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 ...

in the family Scincidae which is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Gran Canaria. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are temperate

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s, temperate

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It m ...

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

-type shrubby vegetation, temperate

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

, rocky areas, sandy shores, pastureland, and

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

s. The adults measure 16 – 18 cm out of which the tail forms 50%. Their legs are tiny, slim, and have five fingers. They live solitarily and only seek a partner during the mating season. They are

ovoviviparous Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a term used as a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop insi ...

; females give birth to 2 - 4 babies after three months of pregnancy. They are kept as pets in vivariums.

References

* Brown, R. P. and R. S. Thorpe and M. Baez. 1991. Parallel within-island microevolution of lizards on neighbouring islands. Nature, 352(6330: p. 60-62. * Brown, R. P. and R. S. Thorpe. 1991. Within‐island microgeographic variation in body dimensions and scalation of the skink ''Chalcides sexlineatus'', with testing of causal hypotheses. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 44.1 (1991): 47–64. * Brown, R.P. and R. S. Thorpe. 1991. Within‐island microgeographic variation in the colour pattern of the skink, ''Chalcides sexlineatus'': Pattern and cause. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 4(4), pp. 557–574. * Brown, R. P. and J. Pestano. 1998. Phylogeography of Canary Island skinks inferred from mtDNA sequences. Molecular Ecology 7: 1183–1191. * Kubát, J

* Pestano, J. and R. P. Brown. 1999. Geographical structuring of mtDNA in Chalcides sexlineatus within the island of Gran Canaria. Proceedings of the Royal Society (Lond.) B: Biological Sciences 266: 815–823. * Suárez, N.M., J. Pestano, and R.P. Brown. 2014. Ecological divergence combined with ancient allopatry in lizard populations from a small volcanic island. Molecular Ecology, 23(19), 4799–4812. Reptiles of the Canary Islands Chalcides Reptiles described in 1891 Taxa named by Franz Steindachner Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Fauna of Gran Canaria {{skink-stub