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Plestiodon sp.
smooth skinned dark brown with lighter color markings, maybe spots?
was seen at a park in spring, tx.
I believe this is a juvenile little brown skink. There are only 3 skinks that are in the county it was spotted in and it doesn't physically match the description of 2 (the prairie skink and the broad-headed) leaving only the Little Brown Skink.
Scott, I believe you are correct. I was thinking it was the little brown skink and that is the common name for the Scincella laterals. It has to be a juvenile.
I've been looking at this too and I didn't really see any close resemblances to Plestiodon but I didn't find that many juvenile images to compare either. I was thinking it looked more like a dark Scincella lateralis, See http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20p?see=I... . But I'm not positive.
I managed to narrow the list down to 3 skinks based on the county I live in. The little brown skink, the broad-headed skink and the prairie skink. I am pretty sure that this one isn't the broad-headed skink because the head isn't a wide as I've seen in other pictures and I am pretty sure that it's not the prairie skink, because they have really short limbs. So that just leaves the little brown skink. I think that you are correct han david, that this one must be a juvenile. I used this website as my reference: http://www.herpsoftexas.org/view/lizards...
There are at least 8 species of skinks in Texas, and none of them look exactly like yours. Perhaps it's a juvenile?
That's what I was thinking. Is there a specific type of skink or they are just skinks? This one was seen about 40 miles from our farm, but we have seen several on the farm, but they are too fast too get pictures of and they seem lighter in color.