Common five-lined skink

Description:

Skinks are a type of lizard that are distinguished by their smooth, shiny scales. Until recently, I always identified skinks based on color and pattern - thinking that the five-lined had five-lines and the broad-headed skinks were brown with orange heads. Well, turns out that's totally unreliable! These two tricky skink species look almost identical and the only way to tell them apart is from the number of labial scales. Those are the scales lining the mouth. Five-lined skinks have four labial scales and broad-headed skinks have five. If you look at the last picture, you can count the scales above the mouth between the snout and the beginning of the eye. He's only got four scales so he's a five-lined skink.

Habitat:

Found on the boardwalk at Huntley Meadows Park.