The Fiordland skink (''Oligosoma acrinasum'') is a species of skink

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to the Fiordland temperate forests ecoregion of South Island,

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The Fiordland skink is found on one mainland locations and the exposed rocky shores of numerous

islands An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

along the Fiordland coast. Their distribution has declined due to introduced

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

s. Currently it lives only on foreshore rocks and boulder

beaches A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shel ...

on the

Fiordland Fiordland is a geographical region of New Zealand in the south-western corner of the South Island, comprising the westernmost third of Southland. Most of Fiordland is dominated by the steep sides of the snow-capped Southern Alps, deep lake ...

coast. It is abundant, even extremely abundant, in areas free from mammalian predators, but it barely survives where predators are present. This species was successfully translocated to Hāwea Island in 1988. It has managed to naturally recolonize another island after rats were eradicated.

References

Oligosoma Reptiles of New Zealand Reptiles described in 1977 Taxa named by Graham S. Hardy {{Lygosominae-stub