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Five-lined skink

Plestiodon fasciatus · Lizards · Reptiles

Five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus): Five yellow to cream stripes of equal width from snout to tail on a dark background; scales smooth and shiny; adults 12.7-21.6 cm. Hatchlings black with bright blue tails; adult females keep stripes and a gray tail; adult males fade to brown or olive, jaws orange-red in breeding season. This profile does not establish whether taking it is legal anywhere.

Check rules for a place and date

Certified rules currently represented in Hunt: coverage in development. This is coverage, not a legal answer.

Five-lined skink with a blue tail on a wooden beam
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
Scientific name
Plestiodon fasciatus
Family
Scincidae
In North America
Native
Range
Southern Ontario and the eastern and central United States: from lower Michigan and eastern New York south to northern Florida, west to Wisconsin, Missouri and eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, with isolated populations in Iowa and Minnesota.
Biology

How to identify it

Five yellow to cream stripes of equal width from snout to tail on a dark background; scales smooth and shiny; adults 12.7-21.6 cm. [1][2][3]

Hatchlings black with bright blue tails; adult females keep stripes and a gray tail; adult males fade to brown or olive, jaws orange-red in breeding season. [1][2][3]

Enlarged row of scales under the middle of the tail. [1][2][3]

Compared with the southeastern five-lined skink: Five-lined skink has an enlarged row of scales under the tail and prefers moister habitats. [1][2][3]

Compared with the broadhead skink: Five-lined skink has four labial scales around the mouth; broadhead skink has five. [1][2][3]

Species it is confused with

Check these before deciding what you are looking at. If you are not certain what it is, do not shoot.

Field notes

  • Identification Confirm a five-lined skink before you act. Compared with the southeastern five-lined skink: Five-lined skink has an enlarged row of scales under the tail and prefers moister habitats.[1][2][3]
Field knowledge

Where it lives

Moist but not wet, wooded or partly wooded areas with abundant cover and basking sites, including forest edges, cleared and burned areas and Great Lakes driftwood beaches. [1][2][3]

Field knowledge

How it behaves

Active April-October in the north; spends much time under cover (rotting wood, rock crevices, sawdust piles, foundations) and basks on logs and rocky outcrops. [1][2][3]

Eats spiders, millipedes, crickets, termites, grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles, snails and sometimes small vertebrates. [1][2][3]

Males defend territories against other males; females guard eggs in logs or under rocks; tail detaches readily. [1][2][3]

Regulatory handoff

Limited legal take

Legal take of this species exists only under narrow conditions — a quota, a draw, a permit, a small area, or animals released or held on private land — set by the authorities below. Nowhere else is a legal opportunity implied, and Hunt shows one only where a certified rule establishes it.

Where legal take is listed

Being listed is not an open season. Seasons, zones, licences, methods and limits decide whether this animal may be taken on a given day and place — check Hunt or the authority before you go. Listings read 2026-09-30.

Geospatial intelligence

Where it is found

Southern Ontario and the eastern and central United States: from lower Michigan and eastern New York south to northern Florida, west to Wisconsin, Missouri and eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, with isolated populations in Iowa and Minnesota.

Biology

Sources

Every claim above is attributed to one of these published sources.

  1. NatureServe · reviewed 2026-09-30

    NatureServe

  2. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Animal Diversity Web · reviewed 2026-09-30

    University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Animal Diversity Web

  3. Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia · reviewed 2026-09-30

    Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia