Life History and Ecology of the Five-Lined Skink, Eumeces fasciatusFitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Science
Life History and Ecology of the Five-Lined Skink, Eumeces fasciatus
Fitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Eumeces fasciatus
For those skinks caught on only two occasions, at different places, the
single movement record provides some clue as to the location and size of
the home range. No evidence was obtained to indicate that the
activities of these lizards center at fixed home bases. It may be
assumed that any two successive captures of the same individual
separated by a substantial time interval, will be distributed at random
to each other within the area to which the animal's activities are
confined. The varied techniques of capture, by hand and with different
types of traps, would help to secure random distribution of capture
sites. If the home range were covered uniformly by the animal in the
course of its activities, any two random capture sites would be on the
average separated by a distance equal to half the home range diameter.
If the animal tends to concentrate its activities in the central part of
the home range, as seems to be the case, the capture sites will be
correspondingly closer together. For the 196 skinks that were caught on
only two occasions, average movement was 62 feet. Within this group the
42 adult males that were recaptured only once had averaged movements of
58 feet. One had made an exceptionally long movement of 510 feet, which
obviously was not entirely within its home range. Excluding this one
long movement, the remaining 41 had moved on the average, approximately
47 feet (Table 15). Among the other skinks caught only twice one of 61
females and 8 of 93 young had likewise made such long shifts that it
seemed inadvisable to include them in computing the size of the home
range.
Distance between points of capture showed little correlation with
elapsed time. For 24 of the adult males that were recaptured in the same
year they were originally marked, the average distance was 49 feet,
whereas in the 17 others recaptured after one or more hibernations the
average movement was 45 feet. For adult females, the corresponding
figures were, respectively, 22 feet and 29 feet; and for young, 33 feet
and 66 feet.
For those individuals recaptured twice, at different locations, the
three points of capture show to a greater or lesser degree the position,
and, in part, the extent of the home range. Of course, all three points
may be concentrated near the center of the home range, or they all may
be scattered along its edges. In general, however, each point will lie
somewhere between the center and edge of the home range, separated from
each of the other two points by a distance of, on the average,
approximately a home range radius.
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