American's most unusual skink

The lament from an old country song ,"You slip through my fingers just like quicksilver," describes the most unusual-appearing of the American skinks perfectly.

Long placed in the monotypic genus Neoseps, the Florida sand skink is now known as Plestiodon reynoldsi. This fossorial skink is highly specialized for a life of burrowing in the sugar-sand locales (often low dunes) of central Florida.

Although four limbs are present, they are tiny. The forefeet bear only a single toe each and the slightly larger rear limbs bear two toes each.

The eyes are small and the lower eyelids each have a transparent "window." Despite the very real limb-size reduction, this silvery 3-1/2 to 5 inch long lizard is alert, remarkably agile, and very difficult to hold.

Whether found by accident or as the result of a concerted effort its response to the light is immediate and decisive: it dives headfirst into the sugar-sand and within a fraction of a second has disappeared into the substrate for which it is so very well-adapted -- and named.

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.