[4] It is an active little lizard, and if threatened will often play dead to confuse the attacker.

It is a relatively small, flat bodied skink of a silver-gray coloring.

It has a distinct white stripe running along its body from the eye to the base of its tail.

[5] Also sometimes called a snake-eyed skink because it lacks eyelids, instead having a translucent layer of scales covering its eyes similar to that of snakes.

[3] The species was first formally identified by the herpetologist Samuel Garman in 1901 as part of the work Some reptiles and batrachians from Australasia as published in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard.