Abstract

The sand fish lizard Scincus mitranus from the central desert of Saudi Arabia, are endangered animals and threatened with extinction as a result of human behaviour. So, their conservation is essential. A successful breeding conservation will ensure their survival and increase their population. The main aim of this work is to show that temperature has a profound effect in determining the development of certain artificially incubated reptile eggs into male or female individuals. In particular, it concentrates on recent laboratory and field investigations on sex determination in squamata. In Laboratory investigations, eggs of  the Sand Fish Lizard Scincus mitranus produced males at 29.5°C and females at 31.50C; both sexes were produced at the threshold temperature of 30-31 °C. Generally, among most squamata incubation of eggs at cool temperatures will produce males and incubation of eggs at warm temperatures will produce females.  This work concludes that sex determination of Scincus mitranus may help ultimately in their conservation.