Western three-toed skink
species of reptile
The western three-toed skink (Chalcides striatus) is a species of lizard with tiny legs in the family Scincidae. It is found in the Iberian Peninsula, southern France and parts of northwestern Italy.
Its natural habitats are temperate forests, temperate shrubland, Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, temperate grassland, sandy shores, arable land, pastureland, and rural gardens. It was first described 1829 by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. The generic name comes from the Greek "chalcides" meaning 'copper' and the specific name is derived from the Latin "striatus" meaning 'streak'.
Description
This skink superficially looks like a snake except for the presence of two pairs of tiny, three-toed limbs. It has a small head and thick neck and grows to a length of about 43 cm (17 in). It is smooth and glossy, with a silvery or bronze colour with about ten slender longitudinal dark lines running along the body. The head is usually darker than the body. It can be distinguished from the very similar Italian three-toed skink (Chalcides chalcides) by the fact that its limbs are slightly larger than that species and the three toes of the hind feet are all the same length.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of reptile. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2121134. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1829.
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This entry incorporates text from “Western three-toed skink” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.