Western Skink we found this afternoon
The blue is so damned intense on the tail!
The Western Skink - Eumeces skiltonianus is one of the more widely found in the west. I have seen these lizards my entire life except for a short time while in the Air Force in ND. I can remember seeing them as a child in the central California Sierras and now they are on our farm here in Washington. It is quite awesome to be able to share the same creature with my kids that I grew up with.
I walked out the front door to go do something and as I opened the gate of the porch the skink started freaking out as it was stuck in a small wide tub on the ground. It took me a full minute to catch the thing even though it was contained in a tub... But I eventually got it in my hand and called over my oldest boy, J, and had him check it out.
J got to pet it and check it out for a bit then he asked to hold it. I was having a bit of trouble keeping hold of it as it was so I told him we needed to go to the wood pile so that when it inevitably bolted out of his hands it would be where we wanted it to go. As cool as they are I didn't relish the thought of it getting out of my hands and the dog seeing it and pouncing.
We got to the wood pile and I handed the skink to J. The thing just sat and hung out in his hand for about 30 seconds or so. It seemed pretty content to not bolt. I told J to put his hand down by the wood in the pile and he opened his palm to which the lizard scurried off into the pile.
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Thanks for sharing your post - I have not seen the Western version before. I live in North Florida and here is a picture of their cousins down South - the Southeastern Five-Lined Skink. My daughter caught this one last week and it started crawling all over and eventually into her hair! Same awesome blue tail!
Very cool. Lizards are such great creatures to have around. That skink reminds me of an anole.
Amazing photographs! I'm glad the camera did that color blue justice because it IS amazing!
On a side note: you are lucky that the skink didn't drop it's tail because the tail without the skink wouldn't have made as nice of a picture.
That was my biggest concern. I have had them pop their tails off in my hands before so I wanted to keep that from happening this time.