When I posted a photograph last week of a skink with a bright blue tail, I noted that a skink can shed its tail if a predator grabs onto it. I never suspected that two days later I would encounter a skink with a missing tail. When I first spotted it, I was so drawn to the detailed scallop pattern on its body that I did not even notice its really short tail. (Click on the image to get a closer view of that wonderful texture.) The coloration suggests to me that this is a Broad-headed Skink (Plestiodon laticeps), not the more common Five-lined Skink that I featured last week.
I was also drawn to the orange coloration of the head. According to the Virginia Herpetological website, the head in male Broad-headed Skinks becomes bright orange and enlarged in the temporal region during the spring mating season. Perhaps the skink lost its tail during a fight with a rival—the website cited above notes that adult males are particularly aggressive to other males during the mating season.
In case you 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 seems so appropriate that I can’t help but repeat it here. “Do you know what skinks do when they lose their tails? They go to a retail store.” Sorry. 🙂
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Very Nice Mike! Cool image!
Great joke ,,, you should be ashamed of yourself! 🙂🙂🙂 Great image too (as always!)
Thanks. I have a bad reputation for using puns (or perhaps more accurately a reputation for using bad puns). Hopefully the appropriateness of the context and the cool photo help to ease slightly the groaning.
What a lovely image. I love the juxtaposition of the different angles of lines in the image and the contrasting textures and, of course, skinks are adorable. One of my nephews has a pet blue tongued skink.
On the subject of tail shedding, one of my 14 year old’s favourite memories of back home in Scotland is of rescuing a slow worm from the road and it shedding its tail while in his hands. He wanted to keep the blood on his hands to show his teacher the next day. We made do with the shed tail.
Thanks, Laura. As an artist, I think you look at my photos differently than those of us who are a bit more caught up in things like specific setting on the camera or the lens that was used. I love to go back to the image after I read your comments and it lets me see things differently than before. I had never heard of a blue-tongued, so did some searches and was shocked to see how big they can be. I love the skink’s spectacular blue tongue, but it looks like I might have to travel to the outback in Australia to find one in the wild. I was also unfamiliar with a slow worm, so had to do some research to realize it is a type of lizard. I loved the story of your son’s encounter with the slow worm–it’s always an adventure when raising boys. 🙂
Indeed, the slow worm is a puzzling creature because it is a legless lizard as opposed to a snake. We only have two species of snakes in Scotland but lots of lizards and slow worms.
Beautiful captures, and comparison. M 🙂
They really are extremely handsome and I, too, am always impressed by the beautiful patterns, especially on their backs, very reminiscent of the more elegantly-executed chain mail used in days of yore–or, quite probably, the intent was quite the other way around.
Ouch!
Sorry. 🙂
It’s a good thing they don’t have tires. If they lost one they’d have to retire.
🙂 My kind of humor!
Off to the store for this guy 🙂
Indeed. 🙂
Certain it wasn’t you who pulled it off? LOL