Western Blue Tailed Skink*

...Plestiodon Skiltonianus...

There was quite an unseemly scuffle in the living room today when I noticed this fellow. I thought he was a leaf until John rolled up on his scooter and it came to life and scooted under a chair. We attempted to capture it but they slither fast! It would freeze and I would try to work up the courage to pick it up, since it was too fast for the throw-something-over-it method, but it would skitter under something and disappear. Somehow it could fit into the grooves on the bottom of my shoe without getting squished. I had hold of it once, but it moved, freaked me out and I threw it across the room. John finally leaned over from his scooter, and got hold of it. I held out the bowl I had been trying to catch it with, John popped it in and I put a newspaper over it and took it outside. It disappeared when I tried to move the rock casting a shadow over its midsection. John and I were both laughing at what pathetic great white hunters we are....

Skinks are completely harmless (unless you eat them) and their method of motivation is a combination of a salamander and snake. They move the two legs on the same side of their bodies together like a salamander (ipsilateral gait) and alternate from side to side like a snake. Their main predators are various raptors who are attracted by the blue tail which comes off in their beak leaving the skink to grow a new tail and live to fight another day....

And that, dear friends, was the highlight of our day....

*sounds like a dinosaur name