Microsatellite loci from the Cunningham's Skink (Egernia cunninghami)

Social structuring and within‐group genetics are rarely studied in lizards, but are of considerable conservation importance. In particular, the impact of anthropogenic habitat fragmentation upon fine‐scale genetic patterns is largely unknown. This is being investigated for Egernia cunninghami, a species with generally low dispersal and high levels of within‐group relatedness. Estimating parentage in wild populations in which close relatives may be candidate parents requires high levels of exclusionary power. The five characterized loci possess 13–29 alleles, and high polymorphic information contents (0.800–0.917) and add greatly to the markers, cloned from related skinks, currently available.