Acontias breviceps, the shorthead lance skink, is a viviparous, legless, fossorial lizard occurring along the southern and eastern sections of the Great Escarpment in South Africa. It may grow up to 10 cm long. This skink was first collected in 1925 by Robert Essex at Hogsback in the Amatola Mountains in the Eastern Cape at an elevation of some 6000 ft. A disjunct second population exist in the Transvaal Drakensberg. Essex collected for the Albany Museum of Grahamstown, but a fire in 1941 destroyed most specimens and records.