Egernia
Egernia is a genus of skinks that occurs in Australia. These skinks are ecologically diverse omnivores that inhabit a wide range of habitats. However, in the loose delimitation the genus is not monophyletic but an evolutionary grade, as has long been suspected due to its lack of characteristic apomorphies.

Mark Marathon · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- LygosominaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivorePBDB, for Scincidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Scincidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 0 Mya.
8 occurrences of Egernia on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
8 occurrences- Miocene25%
- Pleistocene74%
- Holocene1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Egernia and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Egernia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
195 taxa- Antechinus flavipes6 sites
- Tiliqua6 sites
- Bettongia lesueur5 sites
- Cercartetus lepidus5 sites
- Cercartetus nanus5 sites
- Dasyurus viverrinus5 sites
- Isoodon obesulus5 sites
- Lagorchestes5 sites
- Macropus (Macropus) fuliginosus5 sites
- Macropus rufogriseus5 sites
- Mastacomys5 sites
- Perameles gunnii5 sites
- Petaurus breviceps5 sites
- Potorous platyops5 sites
- Procoptodon gilli5 sites
- Pseudocheirus peregrinus5 sites
- Pseudomys5 sites
- Sminthopsis crassicaudata5 sites
- Ningaui yvonnae4 sites
- Notomys4 sites
- Procoptodon browneorum4 sites
- Rattus4 sites
- Simosthenurus occidentalis4 sites
- Sminthopsis murina4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Egernia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia II2
- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia2
- A new scincid lizard from the Miocene of northern Australia, and the evolutionary history of social skinks (Scincidae: Egerniinae)1
- The Encore Local Fauna, a late Miocene assemblage from Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland1
- Late Pleistocene Faunal Remains from Seton Rock Shelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia1
- Small fossil vertebrates from Victoria Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia. IV. Reptiles1
Each of the 8 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Egernia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mark Marathon
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- MCZ Herpetology
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Egernia stokesii · MCZ:Herp:R-33105
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Egernia”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itLygosominae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1838