Scincella monticola

Morphological characters (determination after Schmidt 1925, Nguyen et al. 2010c, Nguyen et al. 2010a). Small-sized skink, SVL 27 mm, TaL 37.6 mm. For further measurements and proportions see Table 1.

Head longer than wide; rostral wider than high; supranasals absent; prefrontals separated from each other by frontal; parietals in contact posteriorly; enlarged nuchal scales in 3 pairs; loreals 2; supraciliaries 6; supraoculars 4, followed by a small postsupraocular; primary temporal single; secondary temporals 2, upper very large and overlapped by lower one; lower eyelid with a large undivided opaque window, separated from supralabials by a row of small scales; supralabials 7, the fifth below the eye; ear opening without projecting lobules; tympanum slightly sunk; mental wider than long; infralabials 6; postmental undivided; midbody scales in 24 rows; dorsal scales between lateral stripes in ½ + 4 + ½ rows, smooth, larger than lateral scales; paravertebral scales 58; ventrals in 56 transverse rows, smooth; precloacals 2, enlarged; medial subcaudals widened; limbs short, pentadactyl; fingers and toes widely separated when adpressed; subdigital lamellae smooth, 7 under fourth finger and 11 under fourth toe.

Coloration in alcohol. Dorsal surface bronze brown with some indistinct dark spots on body, dark brown laterally with a dark stripe from behind the eye to tail tip; ventral surface cream, underside of tail with some brown spots (see Fig. 4).

The specimen was collected at ca. 20:00 on the ground, near a stream. The surrounding habitat was evergreen forest of hardwood and shrub.

This species was recently recorded in Vietnam from Cao Bang and Lang Son provinces. Elsewhere, this species is known from China (Nguyen et al. 2010 b, c). This is the first record for Dien Bien Province.