Healesville Sanctuary Threatened Species Keepers are celebrating the birth of a Guthega Skink – the first ever born in captivity.
It has taken scientists six years to breed this endangered alpine species, which is being cared for in a special breeding facility at Healesville Sanctuary.
The Skink will take about two years to reach maturity and it will be some time before its sex is known.
Guthega Skinks are only found in rocky alpine tussock grasslands, heathlands and snow-gum woodlands at sites more than 1,600 metres above sea level.
Little is known about this elusive skink but is thought that they live in family groups, hiding in burrows dug under rocks and vegetation where females give birth to live young.
They hibernate through the cold and often snowy winter period, and are thought to live for at least eight years.
Zoos Victoria is working alongside the Arthur Rylah Institute, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and La Trobe University, towards the recovery of the Guthega Skink.
