I really love the look of young Common Five-lined Skinks (Plestiodon fasciatus), when their tails are bright blue, like this one that I spotted last Thursday while exploring in Prince William County. The blue color gradually fades as the skinks mature and as a result it becomes a bit harder to spot the adults in the wild.
We do not have very many lizards where I live, so I am always happy to see one of these skinks. They are generally about 5 to 8.5 inches in length (13 to 21 cm), including their tails, and tend to be very skittish. I have read that a skink can shed its tail if a predator grabs onto it and then regenerate somewhat imperfectly the lost portion of the tail, but I have never knowingly seen a skink with a regrown tail.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
We have them with 1/2/ tails but I also have not seen what would look like a ‘new’ tail.
You have set me up perfectly, Ted, for a really bad joke. Do you know what skinks do when they lose their tails? They go to a retail store. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. 🙂
LOL , well it made me laugh 🙂
Nice Mike! Really like the blue tail!
Pretty cool!
Beautiful portrait.
I had to laugh at the retail store…well, it was more of a groan, but…
There are two endemic varieties of skinks here in NZ too; in fact, skinks and geckos are the only native members of the lizard family here. There is one additional variety that was introduce from Australia in the 60s called the rainbow or plague skink. It reproduces so efficiently that it’s of some concern for the natives and is being studied carefully in that regard.
Judging from this webpage, there may be a few other kinds of skinks in New Zealand in isolated areas and small numbers. The Common Skin there looks quite a bit like our Five-lined Skink. https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/reptiles-and-frogs/lizards/skinks/
Right you are. I know this website too, but did a too-hasty quick search when sending you my comment. Thanks!
I wonder what the hereditary advantage is to having blue tails? Nothing seems random in nature.
I came across several scientific article on this issue. One suggests that young skinks are more active than older ones and therefore subject to being detected by predators. The blue tail serves to focus the predators attention on the tail, allowing the skink to survive. A second study hypothesized that it was a protective mechanism within the species that kept the juveniles from being perceived as competitors for the adult males during the mating season. I don’t know if there is conclusive evidence to support the hypotheses, but thought I’d put them forward as potential responses to your question.
Thanks, Mike. They both sound plausible.
I loved the joke about the re-tail store. Perfect. Like you, I almost never see a lizard here in Maryland, but we see lots of them in Karpenisi, our Greek home away from home. It’s a special treat to see one here.
I rarely see a skink, but this one’s a beauty. The blue tail brought to mind an image no one much under 70 would remember: what a blond pigtail looks like when a mischievous classmate sitting behind dips it in an inkwell.
I’m a little too young to have seen that situation firsthand, but I do recall seeing inkwells still in some of the desks when I was growing up.
[…] need a reminder about how long a skink’s tail should be, check out the posting from last week Young skink in May. Some of you may have read my bad joke about skinks in the comment section of that posting, but it […]