A Guide to the Amphibians
and Reptiles of California

Plestiodon"gilberti" rubricaudatus - Western Red-tailed Skink

(formerly Eumeces "gilberti" rubricaudatus)

Click on a picture for a larger view

Range in California: Red

Click the map for a guide
to the other subspecies

Adult, Kern County

Intergrade, Monterey County

Sub-adult, Inyo 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

Tiny juvenile missing a tail, Kern County

Sub-adult, Kern County, with tail, and after dropping its tail.

Tail parts shortly after being released: part attached to lizard on left,
dropped part on right.

Juvenile, Kingston Mountains, San Bernardino County. © Keith Condon

Adult male, Kingston Mountains, San Bernardino County. © Keith Condon

Juvenile, Granite Mountains, San Bernardino County. © Keith Condon

Juvenile, Kern County

Juvenile, Kern County
© Brad Alexander

Comparison of juvenile skinks:
Top: P. s. skiltonianus - Modoc County
Bottom: P. gilberti - Kings County
© Patrick Briggs

Sub-adult, coastal San Diego County
© Aaron Wells

Adult, Kings County
© Patrick Briggs

Habitat

Creekside habitat, Kern County

Habitat,Tehachapi Mountains,
Kern County

Desert riparian habitat, Inyo County

Creekside habitat, 1,450 ft., Kern County

Creekside habitat, Kern County

San Diego County coastal sage habitat

Montane habitat, 5,800 ft.
San Bernardino County

Short Videos

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.

A Western Red-tailed Skink dropped its tail to distract me from trying to catch it. The trick worked - I filmed the tail and its writhing distracting motion, some of which you can see here.

A little juvenile Western Red-tailed Skink with no tail is discovered underneath a rock.

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.

Adult coloring is a uniform olive or light brown with darker edging around the scales, and sometimes the appearance of faded light and dark stripes. Striping fades with age. Older adults may develop orange coloring. The long tail is easily detached.

Young look very much like adult P. s. skiltonianus, with distinct light and dark stripes (which fade with age) but with a pink tail. (Young in the Panamint and other desert mountains have 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

Foothills and middle elevations of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains and South Coast ranges, south along the Transverse and Peninsular ranges into Baja California. Isolated populations east of the Sierra Nevadas, including Deep Springs and Saline Valleys, and in several desert mountain ranges, including the Kingston, Clark, and Providence Mountains.

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

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.

Taxonomy
Family	Scincidae	Skinks
Genus	Plestiodon (formerly Eumeces)	Toothy Skinks
Species	gilberti	Gilbert's Skink
Subspecies	rubricaudatus	Western Red-tailed Skink
Original Description
Eumeces gilberti - Van Denburgh, 1896 - Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 2, Vol. 6, p. 350 Eumeces gilberti rubricaudatus - Taylor, 1936 - Sci. Bull. Univ. Kansas, Vol. 23, p. 446, figs. 72-73, pl. 39 from Original Description Citations for the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America © Ellin Beltz
Meaning of the Scientific Name
(Eumeces - Greek - eu- good or nice and mekos length or height) Plestiodon = ? gilberti - honors Gilbert, Charles H. rubricaudatus - Latin - rubra - red, ruddy and caudatus- bearing a tail (bearing a red tail) from Scientific and Common Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America - Explained © Ellin Beltz
Alternate Names
Arizona populations of this subspecies were formerly E. g. arizonensis - Arizona Skink.
Related or Similar California Lizards
P. g. cancellosus - Variegated Skink P. g. gilberti - Greater Brown Skink P. g. placerensis - Northern Brown Skink P. s. interparietalis - Coronado Skink P. s. skiltonianus - Skilton's Skink
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. Lemm, Jeffrey. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of the San Diego Region (California Natural History Guides). University of California Press, 2006. 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.

Conservation Status
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.
Organization	Status Listing
U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA)	None
California Endangered Species Act (CESA)	None
California Department of Fish and Game	None
Bureau of Land Management	None
USDA Forest Service	None
Natureserve Global Conservation Status Ranks
World Conservation Union - IUCN Red List

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