Riopa punctata
Silhouette: David Orr · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
Riopa punctata, also known as the common dotted garden skink, common snake skink, punctate supple skink, or spotted supple skink is a species of skink found in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. Young skinks of this species have a distinctive red tail, but this colour is lost in adults. The red tail is replaced by small spots and these spots coalesce to form continuous lines as the individual ages. The dots are present on the head and extends to the snout.
Distance between the end of snout and the fore-limb about 2 to 2/3 of the distance between axilla and groin; the snout is obtuse; lower eyelid has an undivided semitransparent disc; supranasals entire and are in contact with one another behind the rostral; frontal longer than the frontoparietals and interparietal together; a pair of nuchals, rarely absent; an enlarged temporal scale borders the outer margin of the parietal; ear-opening about half as large as the eye-opening, with one or two minute lobules anteriorly; 7 supralabials. the fifth below the middle of the eye, longer than the adjacent labials body covered with smooth subequal scales, 24 or 20, rarely 28, round the body; 62 to 76... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tiruchirappalli | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Coimbatore | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 4 | Chennai | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Ahmedabad | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Bengaluru | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Hyderabad | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | New Delhi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Kochi | 🇮🇳 India |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Common Dotted Garden Skink sighting in Chennai on a given day, based on 27 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 4th most-seen of the 22 reptiles we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Common Dotted Garden Skink in Chennai on a given day, against under 5% in February and October, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Common Dotted Garden 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.
4th of 9
Of the 9 cities where we can rate Common Dotted Garden Skink sightings, Chennai ranks 4th at about 20%. The best odds are in Tiruchirappalli (India, about 40%), Coimbatore (India, about 30%) and Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] (Sri Lanka, about 20%).
Same family: Scincidae
The closest relatives of the Common Dotted Garden Skink that you can see in Chennai (family Scincidae, Skinks) are Bronze Grass Skink (about 10%) and Keeled Indian Mabuya (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Common Dotted Garden Skink is recorded against all the reptiles logged in Chennai (27 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.
