For the first time, the endangered Bermuda Skink has been bred outside of the island — at the Chester Zoo.

The breeding programme in tandem with the British zoo, begun in 2013, has just yielded a total of seven hatchlings — a milestone in the species’ history.

The beloved rock lizards have clung for decades at the verge of extinction — the victims of habitat destruction, introduced predators and discarded bottles, which trap and kill skinks.

The skinks, one of the island’s few natives, are among the world’s rarest lizards.

The Chester Zoo programme was unveiled as a blueprint for captive breeding the species, in the hope of developing a larger scale programme back home — leading to the reintroduction of the offspring back into the wild.

The hatching of two clutches of eggs was hailed as “magnificent news” by Gerado Garcia, Curator of Lower Vertebrates and Invertebrates at Chester Zoo.