Smooth night skink

Smooth night skink
	Eremiascincus richardsonii
Systematics
Superordinate :	Scale lizards (Lepidosauria)
Order :	Scale reptiles (Squamata)
without rank:	Scincomorpha (Scincoidea)
Family :	Skinks (Scincidae)
Subfamily :	Sphenomorphinae
Genre :	Smooth night skink
Scientific name
	Eremiascincus
	Greer , 1979

Smooth Nachtskinke ( Eremiascincus ) are a genus of the family of Skinke (Scincidae), within the Squamata (squamates).

It was first described in 1979 by the Australian Allen E. Greer .

distribution

The genus occurs in tropical and subtropical Australia (ten species described) and the Lesser Sunda Islands (four species described). Some species have also migrated to the arid interior of the Australian continent.

description

Smooth night skinks are small to medium-sized skinks with a maximum head-trunk length of around 125 mm. The scales are smooth and shiny, the body cylindrical and the tail long. Some of the species on the island of Timor are yellow, orange or pink in color on the belly. E. emigrans, E. butlerorum and the Australian species lack a bright color. The radiant abdominal colors could indicate that these Timorese species developed from a common ancestor. Their use for the species active in twilight and at night has not yet been clarified. Such abdominal discolorations can also be observed in the genus Hemiergis . Molecular biological studies suggest a close relationship between the two genera. Since smooth night skins from the arid regions of Australia move by swimming in sand, scientists have also called them “Australian sand fish”.

The species of the Lesser Sunda Islands are generally brownish in color on the back and darker on the side. There are also white and cream-colored dots.

Systematics

Two previously unclassified representatives of the Eremiascincus from East Timor : E. sp. 'Montane' (left) and E, sp. 'Lautém'

The four representatives from the Lesser Sunda Islands used to be grouped together in the Glaphyromorphus isolepis group. With E. emigrans there is the possibility that the specimens previously assigned to it belong to different species. Recent research has discovered at least five other candidates for new species of the genus in East Timor ( see also: Reptiles of Timor ), others in Indonesia and Australia.

The genus of smooth night skink includes at least the following 14 recent species :

German name	Scientific name	distribution	Hazard level Red List of IUCN	KRL	Remarks
	Eremiascincus antoniorum ( MA Smith , 1927)	West Timor , Indonesia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)	64 mm	monotypical
	Eremiascincus brongersmai ( Storr , 1972)	northern Western Australia	( Least Concern - not at risk)		monotypical
	Eremiascincus butlerorum ( Aplin , How & Boeadi , 1993)	Sumba , Indonesia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)		monotypical
	Eremiascincus douglasi ( Greer , 1989)	wet and dry, tropical regions of the Northern Territory , Australia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)	70 mm	monotypical
	Eremiascincus emigrans ( Lidth de Jeude , 1895)	widespread in the Indonesian part of the Lesser Sunda Islands, possibly also in the East Timorese Lore I.	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)		2 subspecies May be attributed to different species
Eastern strip skink	Eremiascincus fasciolatus ( Günther , 1867)	eastern Queensland , Australia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)	123 mm	monotypical
North Australian strip skink	Eremiascincus intermedius ( Sternfeld , 1919)	arid Northern Territory, northeastern Western Australia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)	74-82 mm	monotypical
	Eremiascincus isolepis ( Boulenger , 1887)	northern, humid and dry tropics of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland, Australia	( Least Concern - not at risk)	51-72 mm	monotypical
Mosaic desert skink	Eremiascincus musivus Mecke , Doughty & Donnellan , 2009	Pilbara , Western Australia, Australia	( Least Concern - not at risk)	57 mm	monotypical
Western Australian strip skink	Eremiascincus pallidus ( Günther , 1875)	arid Western Australia, western Northern Territory and northwestern South Australia , Australia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)	65-69 mm	monotypical
	Eremiascincus pardalis ( Macleay , 1877)	Cape York Peninsula , Queensland, Australia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)	67-68 mm	2 subspecies
Southern strip skink	Eremiascincus phantasmus Mecke , Doughty & Donnellan , 2013	Inner Basin of Lake Eyre , Australia	( Not Evaluated - not assessed)	84-93 mm	monotypical
	Eremiascincus richardsonii ( JE Gray , 1845)	arid Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales	( Least Concern - not at risk)	79-116 mm	monotypical Not a single species, but a complex of species
	Eremiascincus timorensis ( Greer , 1990)	East and West Timor	( Data Deficient - insufficient data basis)	96 mm	monotypical Largest species of the genus on Timor.

Multiplication

There are three species of Sphenomorphinae, of which eggs and live births are known: Lerista bougainvilli , Zootaca vivipara and Cape skink ( Trachylepis capensis ). In the smooth night skink, this also applies to E. pardalis . In the case of a species newly discovered in East Timor ( Eremiascincus sp. 'Ermera' ), live birth ( viviparity ) seems to be considered certain, while reports on E. fasciolatus are rather doubtful. Most species in the genus lay eggs. Clutches and litters are left to themselves by the parent animals and are not protected. The breeding season of the egg-laying species is much shorter than that of other lizards. With E. richardsonii it is only 21 days. It is assumed that some of the eggs are already hatched in the body ( ovoviviparia ), an evolutionary transition from egg-laying to livebearers. In the Scincidae, such a process is known in L. bougainvilii and Saiphos equalis .

For the first time, smooth night skinks were bred at the Philipps University of Marburg with the previously undescribed species E. sp. 'Ermera' .

literature

Allen E. Greer : Eremiascincus, a new generic name for some Australian sand swimming skinks (Lacertilia: Scincidae) , 1979, Records of the Australian Museum 32 (7): 321-338. doi : 10.3853 / j.0067-1975.32.1979.458
Sven Mecke, Max Kieckbusch, Theresa Graf, Lothar A. Beck, Mark O'Shea & Hinrich Kaiser: First captive breeding of a night skink (Scincidae: Eremiascincus) from Timor-Leste, Lesser Sunda Islands, with remarks on the reproductive biology of the genus Salamandra 52 (2), pp. 178-188

Web links

Commons : Smooth Nachtskinke ( Eremiascincus ) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Eremiascincus in The Reptile Database

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Mark O'Shea u. a .: Herpetological Diversity of Timor-Leste Updates and a Review of species distributions In: Asian Herpetological Research. 2015, 6 (2): 73-131.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Sven Mecke u. a .: First captive breeding of a night skink (Scincidae: Eremiascincus) from Timor-Leste, Lesser Sunda Islands, with remarks on the reproductive biology of the genus , accessed on June 22, 2016.
^ Bird life International: A lost world in Timor-Leste. Mount Mundo Perdido. A profile of its biodiversity and conservation (PDF file; 737 kB)
↑ Mark O'Shea et al. a .: Herpetological Diversity of Timor-Leste Updates and a Review of species distributions. In: Asian Herpetological Research. 2015, 6 (2): pp. 73-131., Accessed on July 17, 2015.

[Shea-1] Mark O'Shea u. a .: Herpetological Diversity of Timor-Leste Updates and a Review of species distributions In: Asian Herpetological Research. 2015, 6 (2): 73-131.

[Mecke-2] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Sven Mecke u. a .: First captive breeding of a night skink (Scincidae: Eremiascincus) from Timor-Leste, Lesser Sunda Islands, with remarks on the reproductive biology of the genus , accessed on June 22, 2016.

[Perdido-3] Bird life International: A lost world in Timor-Leste. Mount Mundo Perdido. A profile of its biodiversity and conservation (PDF file; 737 kB)

[Update-4] Mark O'Shea et al. a .: Herpetological Diversity of Timor-Leste Updates and a Review of species distributions. In: Asian Herpetological Research. 2015, 6 (2): pp. 73-131., Accessed on July 17, 2015.