[4] It makes its home in creekside habitats along the east coast of Australia and in urban garden areas with high amounts of moisture.

[5] The species can be identified by the twin, long yellow stripes that run along its body from the top of the eye, as well as by several more specific character derived states.

[3] It is prey to larger lizards, snakes, cats and birds and so will often be seen moving quickly into hiding when other organisms are present.

However, there are few if any differences in preferred habitat selection within the E. quoyii group, implying a strong evolutionary consequence for the species due to previous environmental changes.

In adult male water skinks the distance between the forelimbs and hindlimbs, or the trunk length, are typically shorter than females.

In neonates, body shape is much more similar between the sexes with the exception of the female trunk length which is significantly longer than the male counterparts.

[6] When Eulamprus quoyii breed, male and females of the species mate in Spring and will give birth to up to nine babies per clutch in the Summer.

[19] Floater males are predicted to have larger home ranges and move greater distances while active, leading to fewer clutches and offspring per year.

[23] Their diet consists of, but is not limited too: water beetles and other aquatic insects, snails, tadpoles, spiders, small fish and smaller lizards.

[23] This leads to a more active ecosystem and offers a wider variety of food options available for both scavenging and predation by the skink.

[25] It is unknown whether the Eastern Water Skink is also preyed upon by any larger aquatic animals, yet it is suspected that crayfish are a minor predator of the species.

[3][25] Despite the territorial nature of some males, due to the relative body size of the species and the high number of predators in waterside habitats, the skink is known to race away from basking sites at the first sense of danger.

[26] Areas with rocky outcroppings and high availability of sunlight have a direct correlation with the abundance of E. quoyii populations.

[3] Australia's east coast has contained temperate, moist patches of rainforest that have changed over the course of millions of years and is hypothesised to have covered a much broader area of the continent prior to the arid conditions in the mid-Miocene period.

[3] The contraction, expansion and fragmentation of these swathes of rainforest are believed to have fundamentally altered the distribution of the E. quoyii species to the current specific regions along the east coast.

[13] Through phylogenetic studies into the mtDNA sequences of the E. quoyii and a comparison of the landscape evolution in Eastern Australia their distribution is suspected to be controlled by biogeographic barriers.