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See the Minnesota HerpNet Site for more on the Five-lined Skink  

Status

The five-lined skink, although not listed as a protected species, is a species of special concern in Iowa due to a restricted known range.

Five-lined Skink, Eumeces fasciatus, juvenile, from Jackson County, Iowa

Description

The five-lined skink reaches 5 - 8 1/2 inches total length (Conant and Collins 1991). Scalation same as in prairie skink; smooth. Adults are brown or black with no pronounced color change on the sides with five light narrow stripes down the back and sides. These stripes are always thinner than the spaces between them. The head is marked with a light V that stems from the middorsal stripe.

Old males may become a uniform gold brown or olive color with only faint traces of striping. Both striped and uniformly colored males develop orange lips during the breeding season like prairie skinks. Young have bright blue tails that fade in males, but the females tails may retain a blue-gray coloration.

Five-lined Skink, Eumeces fasciatus, female, from Jackson County, Iowa

Subspecies

There are no recognized subspecies of the five-lined skink, Eumeces fasciatus.

Range

Five-lined skinks are found in small, isolated populations in northeastern Iowa and range south into east central Iowa (Christiansen and Bailey, 1988).

County records for the Five-lined Skink in Iowa

Habitat

Five-lined skinks are from wooded areas with granite or limestone rock outcroppings on the slopes of the blufflands near the Mississippi River.

Habits

Five-lined skinks emerge from their winter dormancy in late April. They may bask atop rocks or logs and actively forage for their food. They are diurnal, but they often take refuge under rocks or logs during the hottest parts of the day in mid-summer. These skinks are accomplished burrowers, and often form dugouts under rocks or similar cover. Five-lined skinks are often found in small colonies around rock outcroppings in the open areas on bluffs. Here, as in Minnesota, these lizards appear to be absent on other parts of the same bluff or on similar bluffs in other areas. With good management practices, these areas may be be inhabited by new populations of five-lined skinks. Also, increased awareness by the general public may discover already established populations from new areas where they were previously unrecorded.

Breeding occurs in spring. The male grasps the skin of the females neck during copulation. They are oviparous laying about 10 eggs in June in small excavations under forms of cover such as rocks, logs or boards. Females guard the eggs and eat the ones that have spoiled (Oldfield and Moriarty, 1994). The eggs hatch in August. I have observed E. fasciatus hatching in Jackson County, IA. on August 21. There were two or more nests discovered under shingles laying on the forest floor high up on a bluff. All nests had females in attendance. Clutch size ranged from five to twelve. The young were jet black with five thin, yellow lines down the back and had bright blue tails. They were a little over 2 inches at hatching.

All of Iowa's lizards are quick and rely on speed to escape when they are out and about. The skinks look like small snakes slithering through the brush as they move their bodies in a very serpentine way when they run. One must use caution when trying to capture skinks. Often one will end up with nothing but a wriggling tail as the lizard scoots off to safety. Skinks may also break their tails off by themselves by pushing it against a solid structure. The tail will regenerate, but it will have no pattern, will have slightly different scalation, and will never be as long as the original one.

Iowa's lizards hibernate underground in burrows they dig, and five-lined skinks hibernate in rock crevices and tunnels. They usually begin hibernating in September.

Food

All five species of Iowa's lizards eat small invertebrates such as crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, caterpillars, which they chase down and eat. They mash their food up with their strong jaws before swallowing it.