### Identification The Alpine Water Skink (*Eulamprus kosciuskoi*) is a sleek, medium-sized lizard (up to 200mm) with a lustrous, bronzed-brown back that seems to shimmer against the alpine sun. To distinguish it from its cousin, the Eastern Water Skink, look for the clean, continuous pale stripe running along the upper edge of its dark flanks. While other water skinks often appear "messy" due to heavy black speckling across the back, *E. kosciuskoi* is remarkably tidy and streamlined. Its belly is usually a pale cream or butter-yellow, lacking the bold dark throat-smudges often seen in similar lowland species.
### Habitat & Range This is a true high-country specialist. You’ll find them strictly in the sub-alpine and alpine zones of the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales and Victoria, typically at elevations above 1,000 meters. They are "bog-dwellers," tied almost exclusively to sphagnum moss beds, alpine fens, and the edges of icy mountain soakages. If you aren't standing near a soggy, high-altitude meadow or a granite-fringed creek, you are unlikely to spot one.
### Behaviour On crisp, sunny mornings, look for these skinks basking atop granite tors or bleached logs to raise their body temperature. They are incredibly wary; a passing shadow sends them bolting into the safety of dense tussock grass or directly into the freezing water. They are viviparous, giving birth to 2–5 live young—a critical adaptation for surviving short, fickle alpine summers where eggs would likely perish in the frozen soil.
### Diet These skinks are agile predators of the bog. They forage through heath and moss for high-altitude invertebrates, including spiders, beetles, and flies. They are even known to snatch up small tadpoles in the shallows of mountain pools during the peak of summer.
### Fascinating Fact The Alpine Water Skink is a master of the "Big Sleep." For up to six months of the year, these lizards live beneath a thick, insulating blanket of snow, surviving in a state of brumation within deep burrows where the temperature remains a stable, if chilly, zero degrees Celsius while the world above freezes solid.