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
One of these sites was a deserted quarry on a southward projecting spur
of the plateau-like cuesta top, where the upper layers of the Oread
limestone are prominently exposed. In the course of operations, begun
about 1937, the area was denuded of trees and shrubs, and the upper
layers of limestone were removed from a strip about 50 feet wide and
more than 100 yards long. The exposed outcrop presented a vertical rock
face five to ten feet high, with south and southeast exposure. Numerous
jagged seams and fissures in the rock hastened its disintegration.
Quarrying had been discontinued several years before the present study
was begun in 1948. At that time there were talus-like accumulations of
rock and soil several feet wide along the base of the rock face,
supporting a luxuriant pioneer vegetation especially, sweet clover,
stickleaf, ragweed and elm seedlings.
The habitat conditions provided by the exposed rock outcrop at the
border of woods and open land, proved unusually favorable for reptiles
in general, and it was one of the most productive sites on the
Reservation for Sonoran skinks, collared lizards, racerunners,
ring-necked snakes, blue-racers, bull snakes, pilot blacksnakes, scarlet
king snakes, slender tantillas, copperheads, and timber rattlesnakes.
For the five-lined skink, however, this disturbed area was marginal, and
supported only a sparse population. Several decaying two-inch boards
were preferred hiding places where the skinks were found most
frequently, and remains of collapsed rock walls, one in the center of
the area and one at the edge of the woods, were also occupied. Skinks
may have tended to wander away to more favorable situations or may have
been more subject to predation than those elsewhere, since the incidence
of recaptures was relatively low. Most of the records from this general
area were from a ledge in adjacent woods rather than from the quarry
itself. Another site was a rock fill in a ravine below a pond made in
1937. This rock fill was 70 feet long, up to 30 feet wide, and three
feet deep. East and north of the rock pile was a grassy dike, and beyond
it the pond. On the west open grassland extended approximately 200 feet
to the edge of the woods, with a diversion ditch at its border. On the
south end, the rock pile was adjacent to woodland at the base of a steep
slope with north exposure. On this slope the dense stand of second
growth oak and hickory with an almost continuous leaf canopy was a poor
habitat. The rock pile was thus partly isolated and surrounded by areas
that were either uninhabitable to the skinks or supported only sparse
populations of them. By 1948 the rock pile was partly covered by grape
vines. Dead leaves and other debris had accumulated in the deeper
interstices between the rocks. Spiders, beetles, snails and other small
animals were extremely numerous in the vicinity of the rock pile and
provided an abundant food supply. A large sycamore on the west side of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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