Southern Prairie Skink (Plestiodon septentrionalis obtusirostris)
Description: Brownish, thinly-built many-lined skink. Dark lateral stripe bordered above and below with light stripes. Scales smooth and shiny. Postnasal scale absent. Juveniles with bright blue tail.
Habitat: The prairie skink lives in sandy habitat or open grasslands with loose soil, preferably with some rocks providing shelter and places to bask in the sun, and close to a water source.
Range: USA (E Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma)
Found in these States:
AR |
KS |
OK |
TX
Diet: They feed on small invertebrates, preferring spiders, crickets, and grasshoppers, but avoiding ants.
Reproduction: Clutch size is about 4-18; averages 7-9 in Minnesota, 8 in Kansas, 11 in Nebraska, 9 in Texas; larger females produce larger clutches. Eggs hatch in 1-2 months (by mid-July in Iowa). Sexually mature in 2 years. Female attends eggs until shortly after hatching.
Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a degree of habitat modification, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.
»» Kingdom: Animalia - Animals
»» Phylum: Chordata - Chordates
»» Subphylum: Vertebrata - Vertebrates
»» Class: Reptilia - Reptiles
»» Order: Squamata - Lizards
»» Family: Scincidae - Skinks
»» Genus: Plestiodon
»» Species: Plestiodon septentrionalis - Prairie Skink
»» Subspecies: Plestiodon septentrionalis obtusirostris - Southern Prairie Skink
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Prairie Skink", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. Content may have been omitted from the original, but no content has been changed or extended.
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