Even while posturing with legs and feet held along his flanks so as not to scorch his sensitive little toes on the hot, sun-drenched log, this adult male Five-lined Skink is master of his domain, allowing no other adult males to enter his protectorate. Only juveniles and adult females sporting bright blue tails earn his forbearance and are permitted within his realm. With a diet consisting almost entirely of arthropods including insects, Five-lined Skinks are valuable residents around the garden and farm but are seldom found there due to their extreme sensitivity to the use of pesticides including both insecticides and herbicides.
Now that summer is coming to a close, this juvenile or adult female Five-lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) will soon be headed underground for the winter. For now, it spends sunny days searching for invertebrates among large logs in a forest clearing. In the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, roads, high-intensity agriculture, and suburban development have fragmented populations of Five-lined Skinks and many other reptiles and amphibians, thus subjecting them to piecemeal elimination.
