Lizards & Snakes

Lizards and Snakes:  Order Squamata

Chose from one of the three groups below:

No legs...

Four legs and dull or scaly in appearance...

Green AnoleGreen anoles range from green to brown or some of both; can change their color rapidly; adult males with a bright red dulap (flap of skin under chin).	Eastern Fence Lizard Fence lizards have a mottled brown body color and their spine-tipped scales give them a very rough  appearance.	Six-lined RacerunnerThis lizard has six light stripes running down the back.

Four legs and shiny in appearance...

Ground SkinkA relatively small lizard that has a shiny golden brown to dark brown back; a faded dark brown stripe  along each side.	Southern Coal SkinkFour light stripes; wide dark stripe along each side bordered above and below by a thin light stripe.	Northern Mole SkinkTan body with reddish tail.

The next three lizards are all hard to tell apart.  They all have 5 light stripes running down the back and a blue tail when they are young.  These fade with age so that the body becomes brown or olive with a gray tail.

Southeastern Five-lined Skink See below.	Five-lined Skink See below.	Broad-headed Skink See below.

The first thing you need to do to figure out which skink you have is to look on the underside of the tail.  If all of the rows of scales are even in size, then you have a Southeastern Five-lined Skink.

    If the middle row of scales on the underside of the tail is wider than the surrounding scales, then you need to count the scales on the upper lip.  If there are four scales between the scale at the tip of the snout and the scale directly under the eye, you have a Five-lined Skink.  If there are five scales in this place, you have a Broad-headed Skink.