Little Brown Skink
Scincella lateralis
Summary 2
The Little Brown Skink (Scincella lateralis), also known as the Ground Skink (which may refer to any Scincella species however), is a small species of skink found throughout much of the eastern half of the United States, and into northern Mexico.
Behaviour 3
When alarmed, the Ground Skink (Scincella lateralis) is quick to take refuge under the nearest shelter. When running, it makes lateral, snakelike movements. It does not hesitate to enter water to escape, but seldom climbs. (Conant and Collins 1991)
Scincella lateralis responds to both visual and chemical cues of prey. A visual stimulus is associated with an increased rate of tongue flicking, orientation to the prey, and attack behavior. Chemical cues are of reduced importance when the visual cue (movement) is present. However, when the visual stimulus of prey is removed, the rate of tongue flicking increases, and is significantly greater in the presence of a prey extract than to a dead prey item or a water control. When prey are non-moving or dead, chemical cues enable the lizard to distinguish potential prey from inanimate objects. (Nicoletto 1985)
Scincella lateralis, like many lizards, autotomizes its tail as a defense strategy. Tail autotomy involves the lizard releasing ("dropping") its tail to allow it to escape from a predator. The tails of many lizard species, including S. lateralis, may thrash wildly from side to side after being autotomized. Dial and Fitzpatrick (1983) experimentally studied the effect of this thrashing on a mammal predator (a feral domestic cat) and a snake (milk snake, Lampropeltis triangulum). They found that the wildly thrashing autotomized tails consistently distracted the cat predator sufficiently to allow the lizard to escape (this was not the case for the same experiments run with another lizard, Anolis carolinensis, which has a much lower rate of tail thrashing). In encounters with a snake predator, rather than distracting the snake, the effect of the thrashing tail appeared to be to increase tail handling time (specifically, subdue time) relative to a quiescent tail, giving the lizard more time to escape.
Conservation actions 4
Conservation Actions
Distribution 5
Global Range: (200,000-2,500,000 square km (about 80,000-1,000,000 square miles)) The large range extends from New Jersey to southern Florida, west to Kansas, Texas, and northeastern Mexico, north to southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and southern Ohio, and south to the Gulf Coast (Brooks 1975, Conant and Collins 1991).
Sources and Credits
- (c) A. Jaszlics, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://www.flickr.com/photos/medusasnail/6131986466/
- Adapted by GTMResearchReserve from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scincella_lateralis
- (c) Shapiro, Leo, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/11289496
- (c) International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/31256597
- (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28891448
