What Do Skinks Eat? Diet for Wild and Pet Skinks

Skinks are one of the most species-rich lizard families on Earth, and their diets are just as varied as their range. Most skinks eat insects and other small invertebrates, but depending on the species, a wild skink’s menu can stretch from termites and spiders to snails, fruits, and even small fish. For pet keepers, this diversity matters because the right diet hinges entirely on which species you have, and getting it wrong can cause serious health problems fast.

What Wild Skinks Actually Eat

The default assumption about skinks is that they are all bug-eaters, and for many species that is close to the truth. A study of three species of Carlia skinks in northern Australia found them to be entirely carnivorous, feeding on a range of arthropod prey including spiders, orthopterans (grasshoppers and crickets), cockroaches, isopods, and termites.¹ Rainbow skinks in southern Africa show a similar pattern, with termites dominating their diet.² Beetles, caterpillars, and ants are staples across dozens of skink species worldwide.

But some skinks go well beyond insects. The Chinese skink eats gastropods (snails and slugs), arachnids, earthworms, leeches, crustaceans, and even fish alongside its insect prey.³ That is a remarkably broad menu for a lizard most people think of as a small garden insectivore. The takeaway is that “skink diet” is not one thing. With well over 1,500 described species, the family includes strict insectivores, broad omnivores, and everything in between.

Not Just Grabbing Whatever Walks By

A common description of skink foraging is “opportunistic,” meaning they simply eat whatever arthropod they bump into. Research paints a more interesting picture. When scientists compared the stomach contents of those Australian Carlia skinks to the actual arthropods available in their habitat, the skinks were not just eating what was most abundant. They consistently targeted prey types that were relatively rare in the environment, such as spiders and cockroaches, and they showed a clear preference for larger-bodied prey despite smaller insects being far more common.¹

That selective behavior makes sense from an energy standpoint. Catching one large cricket delivers more calories than chasing down several tiny gnats, and certain prey types like spiders and cockroaches are protein-dense. For pet keepers, this selectivity is worth knowing: your skink is not just a mindless eating machine. It may refuse certain feeder insects not because it is sick, but because it is exercising a preference that has been shaped over millions of years of evolution.

Skinks That Eat Plants

The idea that skinks are purely insectivorous breaks down once you look at certain genera. The swamp skink of southeastern Australia is genuinely omnivorous. In one study, plant materials including fruits, berries, seeds, and other vegetation turned up in about two-thirds of the specimens examined, alongside the expected spiders, beetles, and caterpillars.⁴ That is not a lizard that occasionally nibbles a berry; plant matter was a major dietary component.

Blue-tongued skinks, one of the most popular pet species, are another well-known omnivore. In the wild, they eat a mixture of invertebrates, soft fruits, flowers, and leafy plant matter. Some of the larger species in the Egernia and Tiliqua groups lean even more heavily toward vegetation as adults. In New Zealand, native skinks eat fruits from at least 23 plant species and play a genuine ecological role as seed dispersers, preferring white and blue fruits over red ones.⁵ Seeds pass through the lizard’s gut intact and can germinate afterward, meaning skinks are not just eating fruit for their own benefit but actively helping plants reproduce.

Research on the large Bocourt’s terrific skink suggests that even within a single species, diet can be more complex than it looks. Dental analysis of this species found it was neither a specialized plant-eater nor a specialist on soft-bodied prey, despite earlier assumptions.⁶ That study highlights how easy it is to miscategorize a skink’s diet based on appearance or habitat alone.

Tooth Shape Tells You What a Skink Eats

If you want a quick clue about what a skink species eats, look at its teeth. Insectivorous and broadly omnivorous skinks tend to have sharp, simple, single-pointed teeth well suited to grabbing and crushing insects. More herbivorous species develop teeth with multiple cusps, which are better for shearing and grinding plant tissue. A study of island-endemic skinks in the Canary Islands found this distinction clearly: one species had sharp unicuspidal teeth and an insectivorous to omnivorous diet, while a closely related species on the same archipelago had tricuspid teeth and ate considerably more plant material.⁷

For keepers, this is not just a curiosity. When you buy an unfamiliar skink species, its tooth morphology is actually a rough guide to what you should be feeding it. Species with sharp, peg-like teeth need a heavily insect-based diet. Species with flatter, multi-cusped teeth are adapted to handle more plant matter. Vets and breeders familiar with a species can confirm, but the teeth rarely lie.

Feeding Insectivorous Pet Skinks

The most commonly kept insectivorous skinks include five-lined skinks, fire skinks, and many small ground-dwelling species in genera like Scincella and Lampropholis. For these animals, the core of the diet should be appropriately sized feeder insects. Crickets and smaller mealworms are the usual recommendation for the bulk of the diet because they have a better nutritional profile than fattier options. Research comparing four common feeder insects found that waxworms and superworms were significantly higher in fat and lower in moisture, and when adjusted for energy density they were deficient in more nutrients than crickets or mealworms.⁸

That does not mean waxworms or superworms are useless. They make good occasional treats, and for underweight skinks they can help pack on mass. But a skink fed primarily on waxworms is essentially getting a high-fat, nutritionally incomplete diet. Think of them as the fast food of the feeder insect world.

Variety matters. A separate analysis of soldier fly larvae, Turkestan cockroach nymphs, tebo worms, and house flies found that nutrient content varied enormously, with crude fat alone ranging from about 2% to nearly 30% of dry matter weight.⁹ No single feeder insect is nutritionally complete, so rotating between several types gives your skink the broadest nutrient coverage. Crickets can serve as the staple, with roaches, black soldier fly larvae, silkworms, and occasional mealworms filling out the rotation.

Feeding Omnivorous Pet Skinks

Blue-tongued skinks, monkey-tailed skinks, and several Egernia species need a mixed diet of animal protein and plant matter. The typical recommendation for adult blue-tongued skinks is roughly half plant-based foods and half animal protein, though exact ratios vary by species and age. Juveniles of most omnivorous species lean more heavily toward insects because they are still growing quickly, while adults shift toward more vegetation.

On the plant side, dark leafy greens like collard greens, mustard greens, and dandelion greens work well. Squash, sweet potato, and green beans are commonly accepted. Soft fruits like berries, banana, and mango can be offered but should not dominate because of their sugar content. Avoid avocado and rhubarb, which are toxic to many reptiles, and go easy on spinach and kale, which contain compounds that can bind calcium and reduce absorption over time.

The animal protein portion can come from feeder insects, snails, and for some of the larger species, pinky mice on occasion. Some keepers offer lean cooked egg or wet cat food in small amounts, though whole prey items and live insects are nutritionally superior because they include bones, exoskeletons, and gut contents that processed foods lack.

Why Calcium Supplementation Is Non-Negotiable

This is the single most important nutritional topic for anyone keeping a pet skink. Feeder insects are naturally deficient in calcium and have inverted calcium-to-phosphorus ratios, meaning they contain more phosphorus than calcium. Left uncorrected, this imbalance leads to metabolic bone disease, a painful and often fatal condition where the skeleton slowly softens and deforms because the body pulls calcium from the bones to maintain blood chemistry.

The standard fix is dusting feeder insects with a calcium powder before offering them. Research has confirmed that dusting can push the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio above the critical 1:1 threshold in crickets for up to about five and a half hours after application.¹⁰ That means you should feed dusted insects promptly rather than leaving them in the enclosure for hours, because the powder falls off as the insects move around.

Dusting alone often is not enough. A review of supplementation studies found that both gut-loading (feeding nutritious foods to the insects before they are offered to the reptile) and dusting appear necessary to adequately support insectivore health in captivity.¹¹ Gut-loading typically means feeding the crickets or roaches a high-calcium diet, commercial gut-load formula, or calcium-rich vegetables like collard greens for 24 to 48 hours before they become the skink’s meal. The combination of gut-loading plus dusting gets closer to the mineral profile that wild-caught prey would naturally carry.

UVB Light and Vitamin D

Calcium supplementation only works if the skink can actually absorb and use the calcium, and that process depends on vitamin D3. In the wild, skinks synthesize vitamin D3 in their skin when exposed to ultraviolet-B radiation from sunlight, just as humans do. In captivity, many keepers rely on dietary vitamin D3 supplementation instead of providing UVB lighting, but recent research suggests that approach falls short for at least some species.

A study on blue-tongued skinks found that dietary vitamin D3 from wet cat food alone was not enough to maintain adequate blood levels of the vitamin’s active form. The skinks needed UVB exposure to raise and sustain healthy vitamin D concentrations.¹² When UVB was removed, their blood levels dropped. This strongly suggests that for blue-tongued skinks, and likely for many other skink species, a proper UVB lamp is not optional; it is a biological requirement that dietary supplements cannot fully replace.

The practical implication is that diet and lighting work together. You can dust every cricket with calcium and vitamin D3 powder, but if the skink does not also have access to appropriate UVB wavelengths, it may still develop deficiency over time. A quality UVB bulb rated for the species’ needs, replaced on the manufacturer’s schedule since UV output degrades long before the bulb burns out, is a core part of keeping your skink’s dietary calcium useful.

Common Feeding Mistakes

Beyond the calcium and UVB issues covered above, a few other mistakes crop up regularly in skink husbandry.

• Overfeeding fatty insects: Waxworms and superworms are high in fat and low in many key nutrients relative to their caloric density. They are fine as treats but should not be staples.
• Feeding prey that is too large: A good rule of thumb is that no feeder insect should be wider than the space between the skink’s eyes. Prey that is too large can cause choking or impaction.
• Ignoring the plant component for omnivores: A blue-tongued skink fed only insects will get too much protein and fat and not enough fiber, vitamins, and trace minerals that vegetation provides. This can lead to obesity and organ stress.
• Using wild-caught insects from treated lawns: Insects collected from gardens or lawns that have been sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers can poison your skink. If you collect wild prey, do it only from areas you are certain are chemical-free.
• Letting dusted insects sit: As noted, calcium powder falls off quickly. Offer dusted feeders right away.

How Feeding Changes with Age and Season

Juvenile skinks of almost every species need to eat more frequently and consume proportionally more protein than adults. Young insectivorous skinks may eat daily, while adults of the same species do fine on feeding every two to three days. For omnivorous species, juveniles should get a higher percentage of insect prey relative to plant matter, gradually shifting the ratio as they mature.

Breeding females also have increased nutritional demands, particularly for calcium, since egg production is extremely calcium-intensive. During the breeding season, extra calcium supplementation and more frequent feeding are standard practice among experienced keepers. Some breeders offer a small amount of cuttlebone in the enclosure for gravid females to gnaw on, providing a calcium reservoir the animal can access at will.

Seasonal appetite changes are normal, especially for species from temperate climates. Many skinks eat less or stop eating entirely during the cooler months if they experience a natural drop in temperature and day length. This is not cause for alarm as long as the animal is otherwise healthy and at a normal weight going into the cool season. Forcing food on a skink that is naturally slowing down metabolically does more harm than good.

Wild Skinks as Ecosystem Partners

The dietary habits of wild skinks ripple outward through their ecosystems in ways that are only recently getting scientific attention. New Zealand’s skinks, for instance, disperse seeds across distances of up to about 20 meters, which is enough to move seeds away from the parent plant and into sites where they can successfully germinate.⁵ In shrublands where fruit-eating birds have declined or disappeared, skinks may be the only remaining animals dispersing seeds at all. That gives these small lizards an outsized role in plant community dynamics.

On the predatory side, skinks help regulate insect populations. Their selective preference for certain arthropod groups means they can exert disproportionate pressure on those prey communities. The Australian Carlia skinks, for example, heavily targeted spiders and cockroaches that were uncommon in their environment, potentially keeping those populations in check more than a purely opportunistic feeder would.¹ In gardens and agricultural areas, this makes skinks genuinely useful pest control agents, one more reason to appreciate them beyond the terrarium.