The copper-tailed ctenotus or copper-tailed skink,''Ctenotus taeniolatus''
Reptile Database (''Ctenotus taeniolatus'') is a species of medium-sized skink found commonly along the eastern seaboard of

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 ...

and throughout the country generally. Striped skinks are found in open

bushland In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. Human survival in bushland has a whole mythology evolving ...

and

heathland A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...

. They can grow to be 30 cm long. Striped skinks are olive brown on top with stripes of dark brown and white running from head to tail. They have a black, white-edged vertebral band and a white dorsolateral band edged in black. The sides are dark brown and spotted with white. Like most skinks, they eat mainly small

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s and worms. They live in rocky and sandy areas, seeking sunny basking spots with cover nearby so they can dart away from

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

References

External links

photo of ''Ctenotus taeniolatus''
Townsville Reptiles

Museum Victoria

Museum Victoria {{DEFAULTSORT:Ctenotus Taeniolatus Reptiles described in 1790 Taxa named by John White (surgeon) Skinks of Australia taeniolatus