The mountains are not kind. The Southern Alps Skink does not need them to be. The giant of the high mountains. Southern Alps Skink has a size and a habitat that make it one of New Zealand's most remarkable lizards. At twenty-two to twenty-six centimetres in length, it is a large, robust skink, with dark brown to greyish-brown colouration and pale flecks and stripes that provide camouflage among rocks. Belly is pale cream, eyes dark and watchful. A design that raises questions. The answers are in the scree. A skink of the snow line. Found only in the high mountains of Fiordland and Southland, in alpine and subalpine grasslands, rocky outcrops, and scree slopes. It basks on sun-warmed rocks at the edge of the snow, soaking up the heat that will fuel its hunting. A lizard that lives where the snow lingers. 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. A slow return. A long wait. One of New Zealand's rarest lizards. Its alpine habitat is shrinking as the climate warms, and it is threatened by predation from introduced rats, stoats, and cats. The snow is retreating. The predators are climbing higher. The skink has nowhere to go. To see a Southern Alps Skink is to see a lizard of the snow and the rock, a survivor of the high mountains. Its future depends on protection of its alpine habitat and predator control. The skink basks on a rock at the edge of the snow. The sun is warm. The rock is warm. The skink does not know that the snow is melting faster than it used to. It just basks. That is all it can do.