Woodbush legless skink

The woodbush legless skink (Acontias rieppeli) is a species of legless skink.^[2] It is found in the Wolkberg mountains of Limpopo Province, South Africa. Females of the species give birth to live young. This lizard species was formerly placed in a monotypic (single species) genus as Acontophiops lineatus. Morphologically the genus shows similarities to Acontias cregoi (formerly Typhlosaurus cregoi) and a recent review placed both of these within the genus Acontias, which, as Acontias lineatus was already occupied, required a new name for this species.^[3]

Woodbush legless skink
Conservation status
Endangered  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Family:	Scincidae
Genus:	Acontias
Species:	A. rieppeli
Binomial name
Acontias rieppeli Lamb, Biswas & Bauer, 2010
Synonyms
Acontophiops lineatus Sternfeld, 1911

References

1. Pietersen, D.; Conradie, W.; Bauer, A.M.; Bates, M.F.; Tolley, K.A.; Alexander, G.J.; Weeber, J. (2022). "Acontias rieppeli". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2022: e.T41230A197402954. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
2. Acontias rieppeli at the Reptarium.cz Reptile Database. Accessed 13 January 2014.
3. Lamb, Trip; Sayantan Biswas; Aaron M Bauer (2010). "A phylogenetic reassessment of African fossorial skinks in the subfamily Acontinae (Squamata: Scincidae): evidence for parallelism and polyphyly" (PDF). Zootaxa. 2657: 33–46. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2657.1.3.