Prehensile-tailed skink

Description

The Prehensile-tailed skink can be considered a giant among skinks, as it can be up to 80-cm long, half of which is the tail. The tail is indeed prehensile, letting it move securely among the branches of trees, as it is an arboreal animal. It moves slowly and cautiously, bringing to mind chameleons and sloths.
They inhabit the lowland rainforests of the Salomon Islands in the South Pacific and tend to be active at night and twilight. During the day, they hide in holes in trees.
They are herbivorous, primarily eating leaves and tender shoots of different tree species, a trait that distinguishes them from other species of the same family, skinks, almost entirely carnivores.
A gregarious species, they live in small family groups comprised of an adult male and a variable number of females and young. The male is strongly territorial, confronting any other specimen that penetrates the communal territory. Reproduction is ovoviviparous and they tend to have a single baby, rarely two, which hatches at a considerable size, already measuring up to 27-cm long.
Despite being protected, their populations are decreasing due to the deforestation of their habitat and excess capturing for the pet market.