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For the Love Of Nature, Art and Bad Humor
A Comic Gallery of Creative Expression in the Pursuit of Knowledge
Sand Skink
Plestiodon reynoldsi
Deep in the heart of Florida there's a series of ridges.
These ridges are known as 'Florida’s Ancient Islands' -
the remains of ancient coastal dunes that stayed high and dry during thousands of years of fluctuating sea level.
While most of Florida was covered by ocean, these
isolated ridges evolved into one of the world’s most
unique habitats: scrub.
Most of Florida is humid, subtropical, and soggy,
receiving an average of 50 inches of rain a year.
But the scrub is different.
Rain filters right through the sandy ancient dune soil
and straight into the Floridan aquifer, instead of getting caught in drainage pipes, bodies of water, soggy ground,
or the ditch next to Walmart.
These sandy habitats serve as the primary recharge areas for the aquifer. With rainwater seeping quickly through the
sandy soil, the scrub is left hot, dry, and desert-like.
Many of the species that adapted to live in the scrub are
found nowhere else in the world, making it a
place of serious biological importance.
Years of isolation led to species endemic (found only in a specific location) to these xeric (dry) habitats. The sandy ridges of Central Florida house one of the highest concentrations of rare plants and animals in the States.
One of the rarest, weirdest, and arguably raddest of all scrubland residents is a creature that swims through sand.
Don't worry. They're nothing like the creatures from
Return of the Jedi, Tremors, Beetlejuice, or Dune.
Those are all sand worms.
Meet the sand skink.
Sand skinks are shy, small, grayish-tan lizards
perfectly designed for sand swimming. About five inches long, with slender cylindrical bodies, tiny nub limbs,
and smooth, shiny scales. They also have wedge-shaped snouts, partially countersunk lower jaws, small eyes
with windows in lower lids, and no external ear openings
for sand to get caught in.
They are perfectly adapted for life in the sand.
Their tiny nub limbs are well-designed too.
Front limbs have one toe each and fold neatly into a
limb-sized groove on the lower body.
Hind limbs have two toes and are only slightly larger.
Their tails are half their total body length.
Sand skinks are super cool. But not when it comes to
their needy living requirements. They can be quite fussy.
They only live in 7 of Florida's 67 counties:
Osceola, Polk, Lake, Highlands, Putnam, Orange and Marion. The other 60 counties are not up to their standards.
Sand skinks are a picky bunch:
They prefer to exist 82 feet above sea level. (81 isn’t good enough.)
Rosemary, sand pine, and oak scrubs, scrubby flatwoods, longleaf pine habitats, xeric hammocks, and turkey oak ridges are prime. Citrus groves, former scrub, overgrown scrub, pine plantations, old fields,
and pastures will suffice - as long as the soil suits their burrowing needs.
They require large open patches of bare, loose, well-drained sand with no ground cover, plants, or roots in the way.
Leaf litter is mandatory. It collects moisture and is an excellent place to hunt for larvae, termites, spiders, and other small invertebrates. But too much leaf litter blocks their burrowing.
Shade from shrubs and trees is needed for temperature regulation - but only the right amount. Not too little. Not too much. And only next to their bare sand patches and leaf litter, not above.
Ecotones - the transitional areas between habitats like scrub and flatwoods - offer a lot of what sand skinks are looking for, especially those found on the Mount Dora, Winter Haven, and Lake Wales Ridges. But that can be a hard bar to pass: food supply, leaf litter, shade, elevation, moisture levels, and sandy soil patches all have to be just right.
Historically, wildfires naturally maintained these habitats. We now rely on prescribed burns - but even those are a challenge according to sand skinks. Burn too long
or too little and it throws off the leaf litter situation.
Good luck, burn bosses.
People rarely see sand skinks above ground. But look for wavy tracks in the sand - tiny snake-like slitherings -
and it may just be a sand skink swimming underneath.
Skinks typically don't stray more than 80 feet from their
sand patches. They feed, breed, and shelter there, either on the surface or 5 - 10 centimeters down in sandy substrate.
When they find their perfect patch - the right leaf litter and shade - they stay close.
Been spendin' most my life livin' in a
sand skink's paradise. -Skinkio
March through May is baby-making season
for sand skinks.
55 days after some successful kinky skinky, females
lay two eggs in sandy nests or under debris or logs.
Eggs hatch in June or July, and like most reptiles,
baby skinks are independent from day one.
Two years later those baby skinks will be all grown up
and ready for the kinky skinky themselves. Most live and breed for a couple of years before the next generation inherits the best sand patches around - sprinkled with the perfect amount of leaf litter.
At least that's the hope...
Unfortunately, sand skinks are struggling. They are now listed as a threatened species, mostly due to habitat loss. Turns out sand patches are popular with humans too. Two thirds of historical sand skink habitat has been lost due to agriculture, residential development, phosphate mining, and the building of many, many Walmarts.
Lack of fire has contributed to overgrowth of
the sensitive, fire-dependent habitats sand skinks need.
Non-native and invasive plant species are a problem too. And the remaining good sand patches are so fragmented that populations can’t find each other during kinky skinky season - leaving genetic diversity a real concern.
It's tragic that just as we're beginning to understand how complex and connected all species are, we're losing them at an alarming rate. But hope remains for the sand skink and others - because the more we learn about something, the more we love it. And we want to protect what we love.
What's not to love about the sand skink?
May the ridges of Central Florida forever provide the perfect sand patches, leaf litter, shade, moisture, elevation, and food to satisfy the exquisite taste of the sand skink - so the awesome weirdness living on these ancient dunes can be enjoyed for generations to come.
Long live the sand-swimming sand skink!
This comic was a final project for the
Florida Master Naturalist Program - Upland Systems.
References:
https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/reptiles/lizards/sand-skink/
https://myfwc.com/recreation/lead/lake-wales-ridge/wildlife/
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/146375-Plestiodon-reynoldsi
https://www.fnai.org/PDFs/FieldGuides/Neoseps_reynoldsi.pdf
December 2023 Sand Skink Guidelines
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