Photo by Ruby Jung. All rights reserved.

Five-Lined Skinks

Skinks as a group are characterized by smooth, shiny skin and a secretive nature. All over our area - from shallow nests in the soil, within rotten logs, and under slabs of bark - untold numbers of tiny Five-Lined Skinks are emerging from their eggs in the summer and get their first glimpse of the world. Only an inch or so long at birth these little lizards will, if their luck holds, grow rapidly on the abundant store of insects this season provides and reach maturity within a year.

Five-Lined Skinks are understandably wary and shy, reaching an adult length of about six inches. Ruthless predators on the insect hordes surrounding them a Five-Lined Skink is a tasty meal for any predator - bird, snake, or other skink - lucky enough to grab and hold these smoothly slick, slippery reptiles.

The young are born with a bright blue tail that serves at least two purposes: it tells other, adult skinks (who are extremely territorial creatures) that they are no threat, and also serves to attract the attention and interest of any potential predator away from their vital organs and lures them to pounce upon their detachable tail which allows the young skink to scurry away (relatively) unharmed (the tail grows back). The vivid blue of their tail fades as they grow older and reach sexual maturity.

For some reason people (in our area at any rate) believe Five-Lined Skinks - particularly those with blue tails - to be poisonous, which they're not. They do have a robust and somewhat painful bite which can break the skin if they are handled carelessly but then anyone picking one up is asking for it anyway.

Five-Lined Skinks are most often seen on sunny walls and trees where these cold-blooded reptiles soak up the heat of the sun preparatory to hunting their insect food.

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