Range in California: Purple
Click the map for a guide
to the other subspecies
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Adult Male during breeding season, Yuba County |
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Adult, Yuba County © 2005 Jackson Shedd, courtesy of John Stephenson |
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Red-headed breeding adult males, 1,300 ft. El Dorado County |
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Sub-adult, 1,000 ft., El Dorado County |
Note that the dark stripes on the sides of the tail on juvenile Gilbert's skinks do not extend far onto the tail as they do on the Western Skink. Compare
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Habitat |
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Habitat, Yuba County |
Habitat, 1,000 ft., El Dorado County |
Habitat, 1,000 ft., El Dorado County |
| Short Videos |
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| A sub-adult Western Red-tailed Skink shows the quick serpentine movement of a small skink. Skinks are masters at diving into grass and disappearing. This video opens with the skink wriggled into some grass roots to hide. |
Gilbert's Skinks, like this Western Red-tailed Skink, drop their tails to distract predators. The trick worked on me - I filmed the tail and its writhing distracting motion, some of which you can see here. |
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| Description |
Size |
| 2.5 - 4.5 inches long from snout to vent (6.3 - 11.4 cm). Tail can be up to nearly 2 times the body length. |
| Appearance |
A large skink with a heavy body, small head, thick neck, small legs, and a smooth, shiny body with cycloid scales. The tongue is forked, and is frequently protruded. Females are smaller than males.
Adult coloring is olive or light brown with darker edging around the scales, and sometimes the appearance of faded light and dark stripes. Striping fades with age, but are retained longer than on E. g. gilberti. The long tail is easily detached, and becomes orange on older adults. Males develop bright reddish-orange coloring on the head.
Young look very much like adult P. s. skiltonianus, with distinct light and dark stripes (which fade with age) and a blue tail. However, the dark stripe on the sides of young skinks usually extends only to near the base of the tail. |
| Behavior |
| Found mostly under surface objects. Rarely found moving about on the ground in the open, however, they are active in the daytime and will occasionally be seen moving in grass, among rocks, or in leaf litter. |
| Diet |
| Eats a variety of small invertebrates. |
| Reproduction |
| A clutch of 3 - 9 eggs is laid in summer. |
| Range |
This subspecies is endemic to California in foothills and middle elevations of northern Sierra Nevada Mountains south of the Yuba River.
The species Plestiodon gilberti ranges from the northern Sierra Nevada foothills from south of the Yuba River through the southern Sierras, and south through the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, the coast ranges, and the southern interior and mountains, into Baja California. Also found in isolated regions east of the Sierras along the Nevada border and into Nevada, and in the southern tip of Nevada into Arizona. From sea level to 7,300 ft. (2.220 m). |
| Habitat |
| Foothills and middle elevations of northern Sierra Nevada Mountains south of the Yuba River. Prefers areas where moisture is present nearby, including grassland, chaparral, woodlands, and pine forests. |
| Taxonomic Notes |
"Richmond and Reeder (2002, Evolution 56: 1498-1513) presented evidence that populations previously referred to Eumeces gilberti represent three lineages that separately evolved large body size and the loss of stripes in late ontogenetic stages. Although they considered those three lineages to merit species recognition, they did not propose specific taxonomic changes in that paper. We have placed the name "gilberti" in quotation marks to indicate that it refers to a group composed of several species."
Herpetological Review 2003, 34(3), 196-203.
Brandley et al. (2005 Syst. Biol. 54:373-390) replaced Eumeces with Plestiodon.
The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles has adopted the use of Plestiodon in the sixth edition of their Scientific and Standard English Names of Amphibians and Reptiles of North America north of Mexico list. |
| Conservation Issues (Conservation Status) |
| None. |
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Taxonomy |
| Family |
Scincidae |
Skinks |
| Genus |
Plestiodon (formerly Eumeces) |
Toothy Skinks |
| Species |
gilberti |
Gilbert's Skink |
Subspecies
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placerensis |
Northern Brown Skink |
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Original Description |
Eumeces gilberti - Van Denburgh, 1896 - Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 2, Vol. 6, p. 350
Eumeces gilberti placerensis - Rodgers, 1944 - Copeia, p. 101, figs. 1-2
from Original Description Citations for the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America © Ellin Beltz
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Meaning of the Scientific Name |
(Eumeces - Greek - eu- good or nice and mekos length or height)
Plestiodon = ?
gilberti - honors Gilbert, Charles H.
placerensis - belonging to Placer County, CA - refers to the area of distribution
from Scientific and Common Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America - Explained © Ellin Beltz
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Alternate Names |
Glazed Skink
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Related or Similar California Lizards |
P. g. cancellosus - Variegated Skink
P. g. gilberti - Greater Brown Skink
P. g. rubricaudatus - Western Red-tailed Skink
P. s. interparietalis - Coronado Skink
P. s. skiltonianus - Skilton's Skink
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More Information and References |
Natureserve Explorer
California Dept. of Fish and Game
Stebbins, Robert C. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
Behler, John L., and F. Wayne King. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Powell, Robert., Joseph T. Collins, and Errol D. Hooper Jr. A Key to Amphibians and Reptiles of the Continental United States and Canada. The University Press of Kansas, 1998.
Bartlett, R. D. & Patricia P. Bartlett. Guide and Reference to the Turtles and Lizards of Western North America (North of Mexico) and Hawaii. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Jones, Lawrence, Rob Lovich, editors. Lizards of the American Southwest: A Photographic Field Guide. Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2009.
Smith, Hobart M. Handbook of Lizards, Lizards of the United States and of Canada. Cornell University Press, 1946.
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The following status listings come from the Special Animals List which is published several times each year by the California Department of Fish and Game.
This animal is not included on the Special Animals List, which indicates that there are no significant conservation concerns for it in California.
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Organization
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Status Listing
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| U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) |
None |
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| California Endangered Species Act (CESA) |
None |
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| California Department of Fish and Game |
None |
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| Bureau of Land Management |
None |
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| USDA Forest Service |
None |
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| Natureserve Global Conservation Status Ranks |
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World Conservation Union - IUCN Red List
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