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Five-lined Skink
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- Order: Squamata (scaled reptiles)
- Suborder: Lacertilia (=Sauria) (lizards)
- Family: Scincidae (skinks)
- Genus: Eumeces (North American skinks)
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Also known as:
"scorpion" (young have blue tails, and are thought by
some to be poisonous) |
Scientific Name: Eumeces fasciatus
(Linnaeus, 1758) |
Habitat: Open woodland
to forest edge. |
Eu="good," mekos="length,"
fasciatus="striped"
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Length: To 8.5 inches total. |
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Food: Various insects
and arachnids. |
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This is a (blurry) picture of a young five-lined
skink among the leaf litter in the woods near Bull Shoals
Lake. It had just scurried across the trail in front of me,
and stopped momentarily. After it stopped, it slowly
twitched and curled its tail, a behavior known as "caudal
luring." It is thought to attract a potential
predator's attention to the brightly-colored tail, which can be
broken off and later regrown. The idea is that the predator
will go after the tail, allowing the now-tailless lizard to escape
to safety. |
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The next two pictures are of
another young five-lined skink found under tin in southwest
Arkansas in October 2004. This individual's tail is
proportionately shorter and thicker than the above-pictured
skink. This may be an indicator of gender. |
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There are more pictures of
five-lined skinks on the North
Carolina, Missouri, and South
Carolina pages. |
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