Shingleback

Fascinating facts about the Shingleback

• Its short, wide tail mirrors the shape of its head, a likely ploy to mislead predators. This similarity is thought to confuse attackers, while the tail also stores fat that the skink draws on during winter brumation when it must drink daily but can forego food. Unlike many skinks, it cannot shed its tail, so the defence structure remains throughout life.
• Some individuals have been known to live for as much as 50 years in the wild. The average lifespan for these skinks is 10 to 15 years, giving them a long potential life span compared with many reptiles. They also shed their skin in one piece, including the eye covering, a process that can take several hours as they rub against objects to aid removal.
• Pairs have been known to return to each other every year, reuniting season after season, and some monogamous bonds persist for as many as twenty years, showing remarkable fidelity. They tend to re-unite in pairs during September to November before the breeding season, after which they stay close together, forming colonies of related skinks.
• Each shingleback maintains a relatively small territory of about four hectares, a size that it typically defends throughout its life. Within this area it may travel up to five hundred metres in a single day while foraging for snails, insects and vegetation. The lizards show strong site stability, often using the same burrow for several years and even sharing it with neighbours when conditions become hotter and drier.
• Shinglebacks are unable to shed their tails, a trait that distinguishes them from many other skink species. Because the tail cannot be lost, it remains a permanent structure that also stores fat for use during winter brumation. The inability to drop the tail means the defensive mimicry of a two-headed appearance is retained for the animal's entire lifespan. Consequently, the tail serves both as a defensive illusion and an essential energy reserve throughout life.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Shingleback

As the sun-baked earth stretches out before it, the shingleback lizard embarks on a sluggish yet deliberate journey, its stout body and stumpy tail undulating in a slow, wave-like motion. With a prehistoric air, this armoured creature navigates the arid landscape, its scaly hide a mosaic of dark browns and tans that blend seamlessly with the rocky outcrops and spinifex grass. As it moves, the shingleback's very presence seems a testament to the enduring power of adaptation, a living embodiment of the unforgiving yet beautiful world it inhabits.

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