What type of skink

frank_il

14 years ago

At first it looked like the 5 lined skink in my guide. Now I am thinking broad-headed skink. Any ideas?

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Comments (3)

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
14 years ago
Excellent pics! The ones here move so fast, I haven't gotten a decent pic yet. Aren't they cool?! Until last summer, I never even heard of skinks and it took a few days and some help from these forums to figure out what it was. I thought it was a baby snake the first time I saw one. So glad to find out it's just a cute, harmless skink.

This page at Univ of IL (in the "found near buildings" section) has great pics of 5-lined and broad-headed skinks, which don't look like yours, but doesn't mention blue tail skink.

The 5th paragraph on this page describes a skink with a red head like that, blue tail skink. Matching description to the page, yours is probably a mature male.

That's what I think yours is, a blue tail. Google images of blue tail skink.
Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
14 years ago
Ok... went to look at more skinks after clicking submit and realized the pics that look like yours are calling them 5-line skinks. Oh well, you have something else to consider with the blue tail but now I'm not at all sure... someone will come along & school us both pretty soon I hope... yay for the no-edit feature!
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wayne_mo
14 years ago
Very nice looking skink! It looks like a picture perfect breeding male Broadheaded Skink. I agree with your second thought, that it is a Broadheaded Skink rather than a Five-Lined. Five-lined and Broadheaded skinks look quite similar to one another and both males have some red-orange on the head when breeding, but the prominence of the red-orange, the broad head, and the lack of lines all suggest Broadheaded.

What type of skink

Comments (3)

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL

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