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S’N’A INTRODUCING SERIES
EPISODE 25 – FIRE SKINKS (LEPIDOTHYRIS FERNANDI)

You may also find them labelled elsewhere as Lygosoma Fernandi or Riopa Fernandi.
When first described was listed in Tiliqua (The Blue Tongue Skink family)
Lepidothyris has 3 ‘currently’ recognised species.
Lepidothyris fernandi (Burton 1836)
Lepidothyris hinkeli (Bohme, Pauwels and Schmitz 2009)
Lepidothyris striatus (Hallowell 1854)
Lepidothyris first described by Edward Cope in 1892)
whilst no longer listed in Lygosoma itself Lepidothyris belongs to the Lygosominae sub-family of Skinks.
The Name Fernando is in reference to Fernando Po, an Island off the coast of Cameroon. Fernando Po has since been renamed to Bioko.
Fire Skinks hail from Tropical West Africa and Occur from Cameroon through to Guinea including Togo, Benin, Ghana and Cote D’Ivore.
Fire Skinks are Diurnal and therefore require UVB by modern husbandry standards. 10-12% UVB source with the option to retreat from the light. For many years maintained with UVB but with 2018 knowledge we cant really argue a case for that any more.
Active Temperature Range 36-36 celcius at basking spot, an ambient temp of around 30 and a cool end of 25-26. At night the basking temps can reduce to 25-27 celcius with a cool end of 20-22.
Heat sources would therefore be coloured spot, ceramic or Deep Heat Projector coupled to a day, night thermostat.
Fire Skinks will actively bask and rummage around their tank but they enjoy burrowing greatly. A deep substrate in a mix of coir, orchid bark, sand and moss will help to make a humidity storing substrate that is loose enough to dig through. A smattering of leaf litter on the surface to will also give rummaging and hiding opportunities.
Natural diet is insectivorous although in captivity noted to take a range of items including crickets, locusts, cock roaches, pachnoda grubs, calci-worms, meal worms, wax worms, super worms, pinky mice, cat food (low fat wet varieties) and garden snails. The latter items after the insects should be offered sparingly but are most useful with fresh imports for re-gaining condition.
Fire Skinks are egg layers, producing 4-8 eggs. Incubation takes 45-55 days at 28-29 celcius. This is not a species I have bred.
We need more people to be working with them. We cannot rely on wild caught specimens indefinitely and breeding projects are sporadic and unreliable generally. Demand certainly outstrips what they can supply captive bred many times over.
As with all Skinks sexing can be a major headache, females have a smaller build and shorted snout. As they gain weight and condition can become jowelly in the throat. Similar in that regard to Berber Skinks (Novoeumeces schneideri) and Day Geckos (Phelsuma) although I am not clear if it is calcium or fat that the Skinks are storing. Males are generally larger in every dimension. But with younger animals or single animals, the task varies from hard to impossible.