Description: Brownish, thinly built many-lined skink. Dark lateral stripe bordered above and below with light stripes. Scales smooth and shiny. Postnasal scale absent. Juveniles with bright blue tail.

Habitat: The prairie skink lives in sandy habitat or open grasslands with loose soil, preferably with some rocks providing shelter and places to bask in the sun, and close to a water source.

Range: eastern Texas, Arkansas, & Oklahoma.

Found in these States: AR | KS | OK | TX

Diet: They feed on small invertebrates, preferring spiders, crickets, and grasshoppers, but avoiding ants.

Reproduction: Clutch size is about 4 to 18; averages 7 to 9 in Minnesota, 8 in Kansas, 11 in Nebraska, 9 in Texas; larger females produce larger clutches. Eggs hatch in 1 to 2 months (by mid-July in Iowa). Sexually mature in 2 years. Female attends eggs until shortly after hatching.

Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a degree of habitat modification, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.

Taxonomy: