Western skink
Plestiodon skiltonianus Baird & Girard, 1852
Status not recordedlizards
The western skink (Plestiodon skiltonianus) is a species in the family Scincidae, order Squamata. Recorded adults weigh 5.09 g to 5.28 g and reach 7.09 cm in length. Source checklists list it for 1 country: Canada.
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Quick facts about the western skink
- Weight
- 5.09 g – 5.28 gsrc for Weight
- Length
- 6.4 cm – 7.09 cmsrc for Length
- Lifespan
- Not recorded
- Diet
- Carnivoresrc for Diet
- Longest recorded lifespan
- 8 years
- Main food
- Not recorded
- Habitat
- desert, shrublandsrc for Habitat
- Young per litter or clutch
- 2 – 10src for Young per litter or clutch
- Age at maturity
- 2 years – 3 yearssrc for Age at maturity
- Litters or clutches a year
- 1src for Litters or clutches a year
- Reproduction
- Eggssrc for Reproduction
- Active
- By day (diurnal)src for Active
- Conservation status
- Not recorded
- Countries on record
- 1 countrysrc for Countries on record
How big is the western skink?
What eats the western skink?
Species recorded in published studies and collections.
Each pair is recorded by at least two independent datasets. A record shows the animal was seen or found to have eaten the other, including scavenged carcasses and young animals; it does not say how often. Compiled by Global Biotic Interactions (CC0 1.0).
References for these records
- Feeding Ecology of the Rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis oreganus, in Northern Idaho. 1990. Journal of Herpetology 24(3): 246-253
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/259019081
Where does the western skink live?
Countries where Catalogue of Life checklists list the species. Many checklists carry no country data, so the list is often incomplete. It is not a range map.
The western skink is listed for 1 country.
- Listed
- Not listed
The same countries as a list
Why a country list is not a range map
Listed by: ReptileDB (scope: global), through the Catalogue of Life.
Is the western skink endangered?
No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.
How is the western skink classified?
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- classReptilia
- orderSquamata
- familyScincidae
- genusPlestiodon
- SpeciesPlestiodon skiltonianus Baird & Girard, 1852
Synonyms Eumeces hallowellii, Eumeces skiltonianus, Eumeces skiltonianus amblygrammus, Eumeces skiltonianus interparietalis, Eumeces skiltonianus utahensis, Eumeces skiltonianus var. brevipes, Plestiodon skiltonianum amblygrammus, Plestiodon skiltonianus brevipes
Other names and names in other languages (8)
- Coronado island skink [interparietalis]English
- Great Basin skink [utahensis]English
- Western skink [skiltonianus]English
- Vestamerikansk BlåhaleskinkDanish
- Westlicher BlauschwanzskinkGerman
- Lincer OccidentalSpanish
- Eslizón occidentalSpanish
- scinque de l'OuestFrench
Relatives of the western skink
Other species in the same genus Plestiodon.
Five-lined skink
Plestiodon fasciatus
Great plains skink
Plestiodon obsoletus
Sand skink
Plestiodon reynoldsi
Mole skink
Plestiodon egregius
Okada's skink
Plestiodon latiscutatus
Bermuda skink
Plestiodon longirostris
CompareWestern skink vs Five-lined skinkWestern skink vs Great plains skinkWestern skink vs Sand skinkWestern skink vs Mole skink
Common questions
Answered only where our data holds the answer.
How big is the western skink?
An adult western skink weighs 5.09 g – 5.28 g and measures 6.4 cm – 7.09 cm long, according to values recorded on Wikidata.
Where does the western skink live?
Catalogue of Life checklists list the western skink for 1 country: Canada. Checklist coverage is uneven, so the true range may be wider.
What kind of animal is the western skink?
The western skink (Plestiodon skiltonianus) belongs to the family Scincidae in the order Squamata.
What eats the western skink?
Animals recorded preying on the western skink include western rattlesnake. The records are compiled by Global Biotic Interactions from published studies; each pair is reported by at least two datasets.
Sources and how to cite this page
Data as of 2026-11-14. How this page is put together.
- An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1 - Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf - Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI): interpreted data products · CC0 1.0 · 0.11
Poelen, J.H., Simons, J.D. & Mungall, C.J. (2014) Global Biotic Interactions: an open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics 24: 148–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2014.08.005. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22691479, with each record's original reference. - ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles · CC BY 4.0 · v1-2
Oskyrko, O., Mi, C., Meiri, S. et al. (2024) ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data 11: 243. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03079-5. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24572683.v4 - SquamBase 1.0 - a dataset of squamate species traits · CC0 1.0 · 1.0-dryad-v5
Meiri, S. (2024) SquamBase - a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography 33(4): e13812. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13812. Data: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3b
Embed a card for this animal on your own site
Copy this code. The card shows the photo with its credit, key facts and a link back to this page.
CreatureData. (2026). Western skink (Plestiodon skiltonianus). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/western-skink
“Western skink (Plestiodon skiltonianus).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/western-skink.
@misc{western_skink_2026,
title = {Western skink (Plestiodon skiltonianus)},
author = {{CreatureData}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/western-skink},
note = {Data as of 2026-11-14}
}