Acontias meleagris
Silhouette: David Orr · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~60%
Acontias meleagris, or the Cape legless skink, is a species of skink found in the southern Cape of South Africa. It has no limbs, like most members of the subfamily Acontinae. Its slender, tube-shaped body is golden-brown with tiny black spots. These spots fuse into longitudinal stripes in some specimens.
Found in the southern Cape of South Africa, It is usually found burrowing in dry sand as well as beneath boulders, dead trees and other detritus. It gives birth to two to four young in summer. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Linnaeus' Lance Skink sighting in Cape Town on a given day, based on 138 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 10th most-seen of the 35 reptiles we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May–July, September and November
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Linnaeus' Lance Skink in Cape Town on a given day, against about 10% in August, October and December–April, the lowest months. Those are among Cape Town's wettest months, with about 90 mm of rain a month against 15 mm in February.
Between noon and 3 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Linnaeus' Lance Skink sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Cape Town, in our data
Cape Town is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Linnaeus' Lance Skink sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Scincidae
The closest relatives of the Linnaeus' Lance Skink that you can see in Cape Town (family Scincidae, Skinks) are Cape Skink (about 30%), Red-sided Skink (about 10%) and Common Burrowing Skink (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Linnaeus' Lance Skink is recorded against all the reptiles logged in Cape Town (138 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
