These little skinks were pretty much the only reptiles moving about on a hot Top End morning. They tried to make up for the lack of other species with sheer numbers. At one point, I lifted a small hunk of fallen log to see if any other interesting critters might lie beneath. This uncovered several dozen tiny termites and sent them into a tizzy, which immediately caught the attention of five or six nearby skinks. My sister Mary and I spent the next several minutes admiring a skink feeding frenzy.

I’ve written up an account of this three-week trip to Australia here.

I confess that I am not great at telling the various sympatric Carlia species apart. I had originally ID'ed this one as a female or non-breeding male Carlia rufilatus, but was later convinced by someone on iNaturalist that it was C. triacantha. Then someone else was quite confident that it's really C. gracilis. Too many little skinks in Australia.

Nah, just kidding, there could never be too many skinks of any size. I'll call this C. gracilis for now.

The faint red stripe on the side indicates that this is a breeding male, assuming I've gotten the species right.