Western Red-Tailed Skink (Plestiodon gilberti rubricaudatus)
Description: The Western Red-tailed Skink is a heavy-bodied lizard with smooth scales, short limbs, and a long tail that can be twice the length of the body. Adults are brown, olive, gray or green and may have dark spots. Adult males have a larger head than females, and the head is often red or orange during the breeding season. Juveniles have light stripes along each side of the body and a blue tail.
Habitat: These skinks can be found in a wide variety of habitats including grasslands, desert shrub, and pinyon-juniper stands. They prefer to be near water and avoid areas with dense vegetation.
Range: Found from the foothills and middle elevations of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains and South Coast ranges, south along the Transverse and Peninsular ranges into Baja California. Isolated populations occur east of the Sierra Nevadas, including Deep Springs and Saline Valleys, and in several desert mountain ranges, including the Kingston, Clark, and Providence Mountains.
Found in these States:
AZ |
CA |
NV
Diet: Primarily eats a variety of small ground-dwelling invertebrates, but as cannibalism has been reported, small vertebrates are probably occasionally consumed.
Reproduction: Adult Gilbert Skinks become reproductive in their second year of age. Not much is known about the timing of the breeding season. It varies based on location and elevation and local conditions. Mating probably occurs in late spring through early summer, most likely from April to June.
Females lay a single clutch of eggs per year in summer, typically from June to August, containing from 3 to 9 eggs. The eggs are buried in loose moist soil, often under flat stones or in rotting logs. Females are thought to stay with the eggs to guard them as female Western Skinks do. Maternal care such as this is rare in lizards. Eggs probably hatch in late Summer, but hatchlings have also been observed as early as May.
Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a broad range of habitats, 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 gilberti - Gilbert's Skink
»» Subspecies: Plestiodon gilberti rubricaudatus - Western Red-Tailed Skink
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Plestiodon gilberti", 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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