Five-lined Skinks use their vision and their ability to detect chemicals (pheromones) to determine the sex of other skinks.
Distribution of the five-lined skink is often patchy and colonial, with small isolated populations in parts of its range. Habitat destruction in these regions could lead to local extinctions of the species (Harding 1997).
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
State of Michigan List: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
The egg incubation length varies with temperature, so that colder temperatures lead to longer times to hatching.
Five-lined skinks are hosts and carriers of the common chigger, a species that regularly attacks humans (Fitch 1956).
Where populations are abundant, five-lined skinks may aid in controlling insect pests (Harding 1997).
Positive Impacts: controls pest population
Five-lined Skinks act as a food source for their predators and help to control insect and other invertebrate populations.
Five-lined skinks are generally insectivorous, feeding on spiders, millipedes, crickets, termites, grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles, and beetle larvae. They may also consume snails, as well as small vertebrates including frogs, smaller lizards, and newborn mice (Harding 1997).
Primary Diet: carnivore (Eats non-insect arthropods)
The range of Plestiodon fasciatus, the five-lined skink, extends south from the lower peninsula of Michigan, southern Ontario, and eastern New York to northern Florida, and west to Wisconsin, part of Michigan's upper penninsula, Missouri, and eastern regions of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Isolated populations also occur in northeasten Iowa, west central Minnesota, and connected portions of southern Minnesota and Wisconsin (Harding 1997).
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native )
Five-lined skinks prefer moist, but not wet, wooded or partially wooded areas with significant cover and abundant basking sites. These sites may include wood or brush piles, stumps, logs, rocky outcrops, loose bark, and abandoned buildings. Most five-lined skinks inhabit disturbed environments, such as forest edges, cleared areas, or burned regions, commonly called ecotone areas. Five-lined skink populations may also occur among driftwood piles on the sandy beaches of the Great Lakes (Harding 1997). Home range size is affected by available habitat type as well as changes in seasonal food distribution, shelter, and other requirements. Home range may also vary in size and shape in accordance with the age and gender of the individual skink (Fitch 1956). Five-lined skinks seek cover in rotting wood, rock crevices, vegetation or sawdust piles, or building foundations, remaining inactive during cold winter months (Harding 1997).
Habitat Regions: temperate ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: forest
Five-lined Skinks can live up to 6 years in the wild, although most probably die as young skinks, before reaching maturity.
Typical lifespan
Status: wild: 6.0 (high) years.
Adult five-lined skinks, 12.7 to 21.6 cm in length, are characterized by five yellow to cream colored stripes of equal width running dorsally and laterally from the snout to tail. These stripes, separated by darker lines, may lighten with age, eventually disappearing in older males. The typical black background color of juveniles and young adult females also fades with maturation to a brown, gray, or olive hue in adults (Harding 1997). The body is slender and elongate lacking a distinct neck or narrowing before the wedge-shaped head. The small limbs are pentadactyl with well developed toes and claws. Hatchlings, 5 to 6.4 cm in length, possess bright blue tails and distinct white or yellow stripes on a black background. Tail color dulls with age, and is more commonly retained in females than males, which display gray tails as adults (Fitch 1956). Although no sexual difference in body length is apparent, clear sexual dimorphism of head size and coloration exists among five-lines skinks (Vitt and Cooper 1986). In males the development of a widened head and reddish orange coloration of the snout and jaws intensifies during the spring breeding season (Harding 1997).
Range length: 12.7 to 21.6 cm.
Other Physical Features: heterothermic
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes shaped differently
Five-lined skinks are preyed on by large birds, such as American crows, northern shrikes, American kestrels, or sharp-shinned hawks. They are also preyed on by foxes, raccoons, opossums, skunks, shrews, moles, domestic cats, and snakes. Five-lined skinks are quick to escape and take refuge in crevices. If confronted with a predator, skinks may disconnect their entire tail or a small segment. The tail is often brightly colored and twitches, this distracts the predator long enough for the skink to run away. They re-grow their tails over time. Skinks also bite at their attackers.
Known Predators:
Mating System: polygynous
Fertilization in five-lined skinks is internal, with eggs laid by the female between the middle of may and july, at least one month after mating. Females lay fifteen to eighteen eggs in a small cavity cleared beneath a rotting log, stump, board, loose bark, a rock, or an abandoned rodent burrow (Harding 1997). Females prefer secluded nest sites in large, moderately decayed logs. Soil moisture is also an important factor in nest selection. Females often place nests in regions where soil moisture is higher than in adjacent areas. Vertical position of the nest also varies with moisture, with nests located deeper in a soil cavity at dry sites. Even when nesting sites are not limited, a significant amount of aggregation occurs (Hecnar 1994). The parchmentlike eggs of five-lined skinks, similar to many other reptiles, are thin and easily punctured. Freshly laid eggs range from spherical to oval in shape averaging 1.3 cm in length. Absorption of water from the soil leads to increased egg size. Egg coloration also changes over time, from white to mottled tan, after contact with the nest burrow. The incubation period ranges from 24 to 55 days, and varies due to fluctuations in temperature (Fitch 1956). Females typically brood their eggs during this time, exhibiting defensive behavior against smaller predators. Parental care ends a day or two after hatching when hatchlings leave the nest. Young five-lined skinks, with a potential life span of up to six years, attain sexual maturity and begin reproducing within two to three years of hatching (Harding 1997).
Breeding interval: Five-lined skinks breed once each year.
Breeding season: Female skinks lay eggs between May and July .
Range number of offspring: 15 to 18.
Range gestation period: 55 (high) days.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; sexual ; fertilization ; oviparous
Females typically brood their eggs during incubation, defending them against small predators. Females place their bodies around or over their eggs, depending on soil moisture. Females try to cover the eggs more when the soil is dry, to reduce water loss from the eggs. They will also urinate on the eggs to maintain their moisture. Females keep their eggs warm by basking in the sun, then returning to the nest to warm the eggs with their body heat. Females form communal nests where they may share in the care of eggs, alternating between foraging and guarding eggs so that eggs remain protected all of the time. Any eggs displaced from the nest are retrieved by head or snout rolling, and rotten eggs are eaten. Parental care ends a day or two after hatching, when hatchlings leave the nest.
Parental Investment: precocial ; female parental care
