When discovered, the entire species was inhabiting a single patch of clifftop vegetation on Chalky Island in Fiordland National Park.

[5] This species is recorded as inhabiting just one small site above windswept chalk cliffs on the northwestern coast of Chalky Island, about 130–140 m above sea level.

The skinks are centred on a 50 m² patch of low scrub, mostly sedges (Carex), Rytidosperma, and the low-growing shrubs Olearia avicennifolia and O.

[11] Chalky Island has never had rats, mice, possums, or deer, and since DOC eradicated stoats with a trapping network in 1999 it has been free from introduced mammalian predators.

[13][9] In February 2013 DOC staff counted and studied a total of 160 skinks from the Chalky Island site, ageing, sexing, and measuring each individual.