Aussie Lizards, Snakes in Peril, Urgent Action Needed

Australia is a land of lizards and snakes. From common blue-tongues in suburban gardens to rare shovel-nosed snakes in the desert, reptiles are a defining part of the continent's wildlife.

But our new national review , by a team of 23 Australian herpetologists (reptile and amphibian experts), reveals they are in far more trouble than currently recognised.

We identified at least 127 threatened terrestrial lizard and snake species. That is 13.1% of the reptile species where enough information was available to assess their extinction risk, and almost twice the 7.1% officially classified as threatened in Australia's previous nationwide assessment in 2017 .

This does not mean the number of threatened lizard and snake species simply doubled overnight. It partly reflects better use of available information on species' populations and threats, and the discovery of new species. But it is also symptomatic of our government's environmental department struggling with intensifying threats and a backlog of assessments.

This matters because Australia is home to about 10% of the world's lizard and snake species, and roughly 98% of them occur nowhere else . If they disappear here, they disappear from the planet.

Unknown species in greatest danger

In 2017, 43 Australian lizards and snakes were classed as "data deficient". This might sound benign, but it means there was not enough information to assess how likely they are to become extinct.

Our review found evidence that up to 38% of these poorly known species are threatened. That rate is 5.4 times higher than those species we had enough information about in 2017.

Meanwhile, we keep discovering new species. Between 2017 and 2025, the number of recognised terrestrial lizard and snake species rose from 955 to 1,066. Many newly named species, such as Tagalaka slider and Dauan Island gecko, occupy small areas and little is known about them. Of 115 species for which a conservation assessment has not been attempted as of August 2025, modelling suggests about 25 may be threatened.

This creates a major conservation problem: we cannot protect a species until we know it exists, where it lives and what threatens it. Yet Australia's capacity to describe and distinguish reptile species is declining when it's most needed.

The threats are worse and converging

The 2019-20 Australian megafires showed us how quickly devastation can happen. The fire footprint overlapped the ranges of 445 lizard and snake species - nearly 40% of Australia's known species. Monitoring found many populations persisted, but some declined sharply. For lizards and snakes confined to a single mountaintop or rainforest, one severe fire can destroy most of their habitat.

Climate change makes this worse. Some rainforest skinks are predicted to lose all of their suitable habitat by 2050 , even under relatively optimistic emissions projections.

There are other pressures across the continent. Livestock and feral herbivores remove ground cover plants and damage reptile shelter. Invasive buffel grass transforms arid habitats and fuels hotter fires. Cats and foxes are estimated to kill 697 million Australian reptiles each year .

Threatened-species lists are inconsistent

Animal and plant species can be listed as being at risk under international, national, or under state and territory laws. However, these systems frequently reach different conclusions.

Of the 127 snake and reptile species on our updated list, 71 were listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (which tracks extinction risk), and 70 under federal law. Only 48 appeared on both lists.

And listings are only a starting point. Few threatened reptiles are the subject of funded recovery programs, and population monitoring remains patchy . Without repeated surveys, we don't know if numbers are dropping, and their recovery becomes more unlikely.

Christmas Island provides a stark warning: its forest skink went from abundant to extinct in little more than a decade . By the time its decline was fully recognised, the chance to save it had been lost.

Now is the time to act

Australia needs properly funded recovery programs for all threatened lizards and snakes, not only a handful of well-known species. Long-term monitoring across the continent will tell us where they live. And we need targeted surveys for the least studied species before they disappear.

First Nations leadership and knowledge should be central to this work. Australia's first Indigenous-led recovery plan, for the great desert skink , combines cultural knowledge, on-Country monitoring and shared control of actions such as fire and predator management.

For species already close to extinction, captive breeding and planned translocation - where species are moved from one place to another - can buy them time. Christmas Island's blue-tailed skink vanished from the wild, but a captive population produced animals now breeding after being released on islands in the Cocos group .

In 2027, Australia will reassess the conservation status of all its lizards and snakes against IUCN Red List criteria. We have a chance to build a clearer national picture, measuring not only how close species are to extinction, but if our actions are helping them recover.

The warning signs are visible - we need to act to stop reptile species disappearing before we find them.

Jules Farquhar receives funding from Australian Academy of Science; the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water; and the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Chris J Jolly receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He works at Macquarie University and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Charles Darwin University and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. He is a member of both the IUCN Skink Specialist Group and the IUCN Snake Specialist Group.

Conrad Hoskin receives funding from the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI, Queensland Government), the Australian Research Council, Bioplatforms Australia (Australian government and collaborating institutions), and the National Environment Research Program (Australian government). He works at James Cook University and is also an Honorary Research Fellow with the Queensland Museum.

David Chapple receives funding from the Australian Research Council; the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water; the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water; and the South Australian Department for Environment and Water. He is the Emeritus Chair of the IUCN Skink Specialist Group.

Margaret Haines receives funding from the South Australia Department of Environment and Water.