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Fun Facts
Did You Know?
The blue tail on juvenile five-lined skinks is not decorative. It serves a specific survival function: predator deflection. A predator — a snake, a bird, a larger lizard — that strikes at a five-lined skink will target the most conspicuous part of the animal, which is the tail. Striking the tail triggers autotomy: the tail detaches, drops to the ground, and continues thrashing for several minutes. The bright blue color and the vigorous movement hold the predator's attention while the tailless skink sprints for cover
If This Animal Could Talk...
"Watch closely, respect my space, and let my habitat explain the rest of the story."
If you have ever flipped a log, a board, a flowerpot, or a piece of tin in North Louisiana and seen a small, shiny, striped lizard vanish into the dirt before you could focus your eyes, you have met a five-lined skink. If the lizard had a bright blue tail, it was a juvenile. If the tail was brown or gray and the stripes were faded, it was an adult female.
If the tail was brown and the head was slightly reddened and the whole animal was six inches long and not particularly impressed by your presence, it was an adult male. In every case, it was a common five-lined skink — Plestiodon fasciatus — and it lives everywhere.
A Few More Facts
How they hunt and forage: Five-lined skinks eat insects, spiders, earthworms, snails, and other small invertebrates. The diet is opportunistic — whatever small prey item crawls within striking distance of a foraging five-lined skink becomes food. Beetles, crickets, moth larvae, ants, flies, centipedes, and millipedes all appear in the diet. They hunt by sight and by tongue-flicking, scanning the leaf litter and ground-level surfaces for movement or chemical cues. Feeding is diurnal. Five-lined skinks are active during daylight hours from roughly April through October in North Louisiana, with peak activity in the warmer months. On cool spring mornings, they bask on sun-exposed logs or rocks to warm up before beginning the day's foraging. By midsummer, activity shifts to morning and late afternoon to avoid the hottest hours.
Live birth or eggs? no
When young are born: A single rotting log lifted in February in a Claiborne Parish bottom may reveal a tangle of dormant skinks, none of them moving, all of them waiting for warmth.
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What Is the Five-lined Skink Often Confused With?
Five-lined skinks are small — adults reach about 5 to 8.5 inches in total length, with the tail accounting for roughly half that measurement. The body is slender and elongated, the legs are short, and the scales are smooth, shiny, and overlapping in a way that gives the animal a polished, almost wet appearance. Nobody touches a five-lined skink without first noticing how smooth it feels compared to a prairie lizard's sandpaper texture. Juveniles are the most visually striking. Five bright white or yellowish stripes run from the head to the tail on a dark brown or black background, and the tail itself is a vivid, electric blue. A juvenile five-lined skink on a dark log looks almost neon — the blue tail stands out against the brown body like a glow stick at a campfire.
Drag the handle left and right to compare Five-lined Skink side by side with the species it gets mistaken for most.
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Accessibility
Accessibility
Five-lined skinks are small, fast, and silent. No vocalizations. The only sound associated with a five-lined skink is the faint rustle of leaf litter as the animal flees, and that sound is brief, quiet, and easily attributed to wind or falling debris. For visitors who are blind or have low vision, five-lined skinks are undetectable.
The most reliable encounter with five-lined skinks involves turning cover objects — logs, boards, rocks, flowerpots, landscaping timbers — in moist areas during warm months. The skink will be on the ground surface beneath the object and will flee immediately when exposed. Replacing the cover object after looking preserves the habitat and the skink's investment in that microhabitat.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Five-lined Skinks live in North Louisiana?
Yes. If you have ever flipped a log, a board, a flowerpot, or a piece of tin in North Louisiana and seen a small, shiny, striped lizard vanish into the dirt before you could focus your eyes, you have met a five-lined skink. Five-lined skinks occupy every parish in North Louisiana, every habitat type from bottomland hardwood to suburban backyard, and every microhabitat that offers moisture, cover, and insects. In North Louisiana, five-lined skinks occupy every forest type, every WMA, every state park, and every neighborhood that has not been paved over entirely.
How do you identify Five-lined Skinks?
Five-lined skinks are small — adults reach about 5 to 8.5 inches in total length, with the tail accounting for roughly half that measurement. The body is slender and elongated, the legs are short, and the scales are smooth, shiny, and overlapping in a way that gives the animal a polished, almost wet appearance. Nobody touches a five-lined skink without first noticing how smooth it feels compared to a prairie lizard's sandpaper texture. Juveniles are the most visually striking. Five bright white or yellowish stripes run from the head to the tail on a dark brown or black background, and the tail itself is a vivid, electric blue. A juvenile five-lined skink on a dark log looks almost neon — the blue tail stands out against the brown body like a glow stick at a campfire.
What does Five-lined Skinks eat?
What They Eat
Five-lined skinks eat insects, spiders, earthworms, snails, and other small invertebrates. The diet is opportunistic — whatever small prey item crawls within striking distance of a foraging five-lined skink becomes food. Beetles, crickets, moth larvae, ants, flies, centipedes, and millipedes all appear in the diet. They hunt by sight and by tongue-flicking, scanning the leaf litter and ground-level surfaces for movement or chemical cues.
Feeding is diurnal. Five-lined skinks are active during daylight hours from roughly April through October in North Louisiana, with peak activity in the warmer months. On cool spring mornings, they bask on sun-exposed logs or rocks to warm up before beginning the day's foraging. By midsummer, activity shifts to morning and late afternoon to avoid the hottest hours.
Reproduction
Mating occurs in May in North Louisiana. Males are polygynandrous — both sexes mate with multiple partners. Males court females with head-bobbing and approach behaviors, and competition between males involves chasing, posturing, and occasional biting. Males with slightly reddened heads during breeding season signal their status, though the display is subtle compared to the broadhead skink's orange fireworks.
Females lay 4 to 18 eggs — clutch size varies with body size and location — in small cavities beneath rotting logs, stumps, rocks, boards, or in abandoned rodent burrows. Egg laying happens in June, and here is the noteworthy part: female five-lined skinks guard their eggs. They stay with the clutch through the entire incubation period — roughly 24 to 55 days depending on temperature — turning the eggs, moving them to maintain humidity, and defending the nest against small predators.
Maternal care in a lizard is not the norm. Most lizards lay eggs and leave. Five-lined skinks, broadhead skinks, and a few other species in the genus Plestiodon are among the minority that actively brood and defend their nests. The female's defensive behavior includes biting and chasing small predators — other skinks, small snakes, large insects — away from the nest. She does not eat during the brooding period or eats very little, investing the energy instead in egg protection.
Hatchlings emerge looking like miniature adults with maximum-contrast coloring — dark body, bright white stripes, vivid blue tail. They are immediately independent. No further parental care occurs after hatching. Sexual maturity arrives in the second or third year, and wild lifespan is about 6 years, with most individuals probably living 3 to 4 years.
Is Five-lined Skinks dangerous to people?
No. This species is not dangerous to people when it is observed without handling or disturbance
