Emerald tree skinks in Europe
Lamprolepis smaragdina in the European hobby
Nearly everything written in English about this species comes from the United States, Australia or the animal's own range. If you keep one in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium or France, some of that advice does not transfer cleanly, and a good deal of what has been written is invisible to you because your language files the species under a different name entirely.
This page collects what changes on this side of the world: what to search for, how the animals get here, what the rules look like country by country, and which parts of the care load a European home quietly makes harder.
What to search for in your own language
The species carries a different name in almost every European market, and those names are not translations of one another. Searching in English alone will miss most of what has been published about it.
| English | Emerald tree skink, emerald skink, green tree skink |
|---|---|
| Dutch | Smaragdskink |
| German | Smaragdgrüner Glanzskink, Philippinischer Smaragdskink, usually shortened to Smaragdskink in the trade |
| French | Scinque émeraude, scinque arboricole émeraude |
| Swedish | Smaragdskink |
| Hungarian | Smaragdszkink |
| Czech | Scink smaragdový |
The Reptile Database gives emerald skink and green tree skink for English, and Smaragdgrüner Glanzskink and Philippinischer Smaragdskink for German (source: Reptile Database). The remaining forms are the ones each national encyclopaedia and each local classified section actually use. Whatever the advert calls the animal, the species is the same one and the care requirements do not shift with the language. The species profile covers the biology in full.
How they reach the European market
This is not a common species here. There is no large European captive population, no deep pool of established lines, and no steady supply. Most animals offered in Europe arrive as imports of wild-caught adults.
My species profile notes that the great majority of animals offered for sale anywhere are wild-caught. The import figures on the subspecies page show how lopsided that is in the one market where the records are public, the United States. Europe has no equivalent dataset, and the reason is worth understanding: the species is not listed on CITES, so it generates no CITES trade records at all. Nobody is counting. Any European who tells you what fraction of the market is captive-bred is guessing, myself included.
In practice the animals surface in three places. Terraristik.com carries most of the pan-European classified traffic and, usefully, lists adverts under several of the names above at once, which makes it the single best search if you are willing to travel. Marktplaats is where Dutch listings appear. And the large shows, Terraristika in Hamm and the Reptielenbeurs in Houten, are where most European keepers meet a seller face to face.
Telling a wild-caught animal from a captive-bred one
Worth taking seriously before money changes hands, because that single distinction decides most of your first year.
A breeder who actually bred the animal can give you a hatch date and name both parents. Ask for both. If the seller can produce neither, you are looking at an import regardless of what the listing says. Wild-caught stock also has a shape to it: several similarly sized adults appearing at once, all at one price, often with old tail damage, worn snouts from hitting the sides of a shipping box, or a flatness to the animal that a well-started captive-bred juvenile does not have. Imports commonly carry parasite loads and arrive dehydrated and badly stressed.
None of that makes an imported animal unkeepable, and I am not going to pretend the European hobby could run without them today. But you should go in knowing that you are buying a rehabilitation project rather than a pet, and quarantine accordingly. The health and welfare page sets out what that involves.
The legal position, and what I could not verify
I am a keeper, not a lawyer. What follows is what I could confirm from official or primary documents. This area is moving quickly, so treat it as a pointer to the right document rather than as an answer, and check the current text before you commit to an animal.
Across the EU
The species is not listed on CITES and does not appear in the EU wildlife-trade Annexes, so no permit attaches to the species itself for import, export or ownership. What that means in practice is that anything restricting it will be national law rather than EU law.
An EU-wide positive list, a list naming the only species that may be kept, has been under discussion for several years, and the Commission has commissioned work on whether one is feasible. Nothing is in force, and I have found no Commission text that fixes a date, so I would not plan around it either way.
The short version, country by country
| Belgium (Flanders) | Absent from the positive list, so keeping and trading the species is not permitted. Verified against the official annex. |
|---|---|
| Belgium (Wallonia) | A separate regional list exists. Its legal standing has been contested, so ask the region directly. |
| Netherlands | No reptile positive list exists, so nothing restricts the species. |
| Spain | A positive-list system is being built under Ley 7/2023. The reptile list is not published yet. |
| Italy | Moving towards a positive-list model. I could not verify where reptiles currently stand. |
| Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Poland, Ireland, the Nordics | No species-specific rule found, but I could not verify the absence of one. Ask your national authority. |
Belgium
Belgium is the one country where I can give a straight answer, and the answer is no.
Flanders has had a reptile positive list in force since 1 October 2019, set by the Besluit van de Vlaamse Regering of 22 March 2019 and published in the Belgisch Staatsblad on 12 April 2019. Reptiles that are not on it may not be kept or traded. I downloaded the official annex and read it: the list runs to 422 species, of which nine are skinks, and Lamprolepis smaragdina is not one of them. The nine are Corucia zebrata, Cyclodomorphus, Tiliqua gigas, Tiliqua rugosa, Tiliqua scincoides, Lepidothyris fernandi, Chalcides ocellatus, Eumeces algeriensis and Eumeces schneideri (source: Bijlage, Lijst van reptielen die gehouden mogen worden).
Wallonia set its own reptile list in December 2020, running to roughly 257 species, and an earlier advisory list drawn up in 2017 for the Brussels and Walloon welfare councils also left this species out. The legal standing of the Walloon list has since been challenged, and I could not establish the current position well enough to state it, so ask your regional animal welfare administration rather than relying on this page.
Netherlands
The Dutch huis- en hobbydierenlijst, the positive list, currently applies to mammals only. LICG, the government-backed information centre for companion animals, states this plainly and adds that lists for other groups are intended to follow, probably reptiles and birds first (source: LICG). A parliamentary motion asking for a reptile list was adopted and the ministry has committed to producing one, but at the time of writing no such list exists and no reptile is restricted by it.
A note on the mammal list; it has been through the courts more than once. On 28 May 2026 the College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven let it stand, and at the same time ruled that five of the species assessments behind it did not hold up and had to be done again.
Platform Verantwoord Huisdierenbezit is the Dutch foundation that has taken the list to court, and their objections are the ones I share: criteria that are not transparent or objective, assessments that are not grounded in practical knowledge of keeping the animals, and an outcome that is unworkable for the keepers and breeders who know these species best. Their alternative is the one I would rather see, which is binding housing requirements per species instead of a list of permitted names, because that tells a keeper what an animal actually needs rather than only whether they are allowed to have one.
Spain
Spain is heading the same way and is worth watching if you keep reptiles there. Ley 7/2023 created a listado positivo, a positive list of species that may be kept as companion animals, and the Ministerio de Derechos Sociales put the draft Real Decreto out for public consultation in April 2026. The draft sets up six separate lists, one each for mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates.
I read the draft. Two things in it matter here. The selection criteria include adult size and weight, and for reptiles the threshold is 2 kg, which an animal of this size clears without difficulty. The draft also states that reptiles exceeding 2 kg as adults will not be considered for inclusion at all, chelonians excepted (source: Proyecto de Real Decreto, Ministerio de Derechos Sociales, Consumo y Agenda 2030).
Clearing a weight threshold is not the same as being listed, and the reptile list itself does not exist yet. Until it is published, nothing here restricts the species, and after publication everything depends on whether it made the list. If you are in Spain, that is the document to watch.
Italy
Italy has been moving towards a positive-list model of its own. I could not verify where reptiles currently stand, so I am not going to summarise it from secondary reporting.
Germany, France, Austria and the rest
I could not find a species-specific restriction on Lamprolepis smaragdina in Germany, France, Austria, Portugal, Poland, Ireland or the Nordic countries. I also could not verify the absence of one well enough to state it as fact, so I am not going to. Several countries run keeping rules that bite below the level of the species: Germany applies requirements through the Länder and through federal animal welfare guidance on reptile keeping, and Switzerland requires documented competence for a range of species groups. If you are in one of those, your national veterinary or animal welfare authority is the right first stop, not a care sheet.
Belgium is the warning here. Nine skinks made the Flemish list and this one did not, which is not a thing you would guess from any English-language care sheet. Check before you buy, not after.
What a European home makes harder
Two things, and neither is legal.
Which one bites depends on how far south you are, and the split is sharper than most care sheets admit.
In the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ireland and the Nordic countries the problem is January. Central heating pulls indoor relative humidity down hard, often into the thirties, and a tall tropical enclosure standing in that air loses moisture continuously. The 60 to 80% this species lives in is easy to hold in July and genuinely difficult to hold in midwinter. Build for the January case rather than fighting it later with a hand sprayer. The terrarium page covers the ventilation, misting and substrate choices that hold humidity without the enclosure going sour.
In Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and southern France the problem is August, and it is the opposite problem. A room that sits at 32°C for weeks removes your temperature gradient entirely, because the cool end of the enclosure can never get below ambient. An animal that cannot move away from the heat is in real trouble, and no amount of misting substitutes for a gradient. If you keep this species in southern Europe, plan how you will cool the room, not the enclosure, and be honest about what happens during a heatwave.
The second cost is electricity, and it lands on the northern half. Heating and lighting a tall tropical enclosure through a northern European winter is the largest running cost of this animal, and a considerably bigger number than most American care sheets assume. My own figures, metered rather than estimated, are on the costs page.
One thing that helps in either climate: I run my enclosure against the live weather in the Solomon Islands instead of a fixed timer, which handles the seasonal drift on its own. The Home Assistant page explains how that is put together.
Getting one from me
I am in the Netherlands and I rehome in person only. I do not ship live animals by courier, for the reasons set out on the shipping and pickup page. Anything currently available is listed on the available animals page, with parentage traceable through my own studbook.
If you are further away, that makes me a source of information rather than a source of animals, which is fine. I would much rather you bought well locally than travelled badly.
Sources & references
- Vlaamse Regering (2019). Bijlage: lijst van reptielen die gehouden mogen worden. Besluit van 22 March 2019, Belgisch Staatsblad 12 April 2019, in force 1 October 2019. Read in full and checked for this species, which is absent; nine Scincidae appear.
- Ministerio de Derechos Sociales, Consumo y Agenda 2030 (2026). Proyecto de Real Decreto por el que se desarrolla el listado positivo de animales de compañía. Draft out for public consultation; source for the six separate lists and the 2 kg reptile threshold.
- Platform Verantwoord Huisdierenbezit. Huis- en hobbydierenlijst. The Dutch foundation opposing the positive list; source for the objections summarised above, which are their position and mine, not a neutral account.
- LICG (Landelijk InformatieCentrum Gezelschapsdieren). Huis- en hobbydierenlijst (positieflijst). Basis for the statement that the Dutch positive list currently covers mammals only.
- Brussels Environment / Conseil bruxellois du bien-être animal (2017). Advice: positive list for reptiles. Checked directly for Lamprolepis smaragdina, which does not appear; nine Scincidae are listed.
- The Reptile Database. Lamprolepis smaragdina (Lesson, 1829). Source for the English and German common names.
- GBIF. Lamprolepis smaragdina. Accepted name and taxonomy.
If you keep this species in a European country I have not covered, or you know the current legal position where you are and can point me at the official text, please tell me on the contribute page. I would rather correct this page than leave it vague.