Elusive scaly creature — last seen in 1981 — rediscovered in grassland in Australia

Hidden by the tall grass, an elusive creature crawled along the ground. The scaly animal slipped in and out of the cracks in the Australian soil, evading people so well that it was feared extinct.

Not anymore.

The Lyon’s grassland striped skink is a small species of lizard with a brown-yellow upper body and a pink snake-like tail. It has only been found in Queensland grasslands, where it lives in the soil cracks, the Queensland Museum Network said in a Nov. 8 news release shared with McClatchy News.

The skink was last seen in 1981 and feared to be extinct, the museum said.

Scientists set out this year to try and find the rare lizard. They set up lines of pit traps in several grassland areas and waited, the release said.

It worked. Researchers caught a Lyon’s grassland striped skink for the first time in decades, the museum said. Photos show a researcher holding the small lizard.

“To find it again after 42 years, and at several different sites, is exciting,” Conrad Hoskin, one of the researchers, said in the release.

The captured skink was later released. Video footage shows the tiny animal digging into the soil and disappearing. Only its pink tail is still visible.

Following the species’ rediscovery, the Lyon’s grassland striped skink was listed as a critically endangered species by the Queensland and Australian governments, the release said. Scientists hope to continue studying the skink.

“We need to know if these skinks have healthy populations or if they are declining,” the expedition leader Andrew Amey said in the release. “We can’t take effective action to protect them if we don’t know where they occur and what threats are impacting them. The only way to get this information is (to) go and look for them.”

Researchers also found two other species of skink, the limbless fine-lined slider and the Mount Surprise slider, with limited ranges, the museum said. Photos show these two skink species.

“These lizards are all hard to find and seldom seen,” Amey said in the release. “It was an exciting moment to find all three skinks, but to find the Lyon’s Grassland Striped Skink was an amazing discovery.”

Skinks are a lizard group with “mostly secretive ground dwellers or burrowers,” according to Britannica. Some species have “such peculiarities as reduced or absent limbs.”

Queensland is a large state in northeastern Australia. The skink’s exact location was not released.

The research team included Amey, Patrick Couper, Martin Ambrose, Angus Emmott and Hoskin.

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