The living stone of Great Barrier Island. Marbled Skink has a pattern that looks like marble or granite. At sixteen to twenty centimetres in length, it is a medium-large skink, robust and powerful, with dark brown to greyish-brown colouration and pale marbled markings. Belly is pale cream, eyes dark and watchful. It looks like the rocks it lives among – grey, textured, solid. A skink of the coastal rocks. Found only on Great Barrier Island and nearby islands, in coastal forests, scrublands, and rocky shorelines. A diurnal species, active during the day, it basks on sun-warmed rocks and logs, soaking up the heat that will fuel its hunting. The island stands in the Hauraki Gulf, exposed to the wind and the waves, and this skink has turned that exposure into a way of life. Viviparous, giving birth to live young. Females produce two to four offspring each year, a slow reproductive rate that makes the species vulnerable to population decline. The young are born in late summer and are miniature versions of the adults, independent from birth. On an island with few native predators, this slow rate was once sustainable. Then rats arrived. Threatened by habitat loss and predation. Its restricted range makes it vulnerable to localised threats, and its population is declining. Great Barrier Island is remote, but even there, development and introduced predators have taken a toll. The marbled skink hides in the remaining pockets of undisturbed forest, clinging to existence on the edge of the gulf. To see a Marbled Skink is to see a lizard that exists nowhere else on Earth. A creature of the island rocks, a survivor of the Hauraki Gulf. Its marbled pattern is a reminder of the stone and the sea, of the ancient geology of Aotea. The island stands in the gulf, and as long as it stands, there is hope for this marbled survivor.