Ctenotus essingtonii, also known commonly as Essington's ctenotus and the lowlands plain-backed ctenotus, is a species of skink. The species can be found in the Northern Territory and Cape York Peninsula of North Queensland.
Etymology The specific name, essingtonii, refers to the locality Port Essington, Australia.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (Ctenotus essingtonii, p. 86).
Geographic range C. essingtonii is found in the northern portion of the Northern Territory, including the Tiwi Islands.
Habitat The preferred natural habitat of C. essingtonii is forest.
Description C. essingtonii may attain a snout-to-vent length (SVL) of . It has five toes on each of its four feet. It is slender, with 26 scale rows at midbody.
Reproduction Sexually mature individuals of C. essingtonii breed during the dry season. The species is oviparous.
References
Further reading Cogger HG (2014). Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia, Seventh Edition. Clayton, Victoria, Australia: CSIRO Publishing. xxx + 1,033 pp. . Gray JE (1842). "Description of some hitherto unrecorded species of Australian Reptiles and Batrachians". Zoological Miscellany 2: 51–57. (Tiliqua essingtonii, new species, pp. 51–52). Storr GM, Smith LA, Johnstone RE (1999). Lizards of Western Australia. I. Skinks, Revised Edition. Perth: Western Australian Museum. 291 pp. . Wilson S, Swan G (2013). A Complete Guide to Reptiles of Australia, Fourth Edition. Sydney: New Holland Publishers. 522 pp. .