THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Scincidae  

Coal Skink
Plestiodon anthracinus (Baird, 1849)

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.04.10.08.04.17)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.2 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi Missouri New York North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Pennsylvania South Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia West Virginia

First instance(s) of published English names:
Coal Skink (Eumeces anthracinus: Jordan, David Starr. 1876. Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States: Including the District East of the Mississippi River, and North of North Carolina and Tennessee, Exclusive of Marine Species. Jansen, McClurg, and Company, Chicago, Illinois.. 342pp.); Anthracite Skink (Eumeces anthracinus: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Pluvial Skink (Eumeces pluvialis: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Coal Skink (Eumeces anthracinus: Hurter, Julius. 1911. Herpetology of Missouri. Transactions of the Academy of Science St. Louis 20(5):59-274); Coal Skink (Eumeces anthracinus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Baird's Skink (Eumeces anthracinus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Coal Skink (Eumeces anthracinus anthracinus: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Southern Coal Skink (Eumeces anthracinus pluvialis: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1849 Baird, Spencer F. Descriptions of four new species of North American Salamanders, and one new species of Scink. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Series 2 1:292-294
1946 Smith, Hobart M. The systematic status of Eumeces pluvialis Cope, a noteworthy records of other amphibians and reptiles from Kansas and Oklahoma. University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural History 1(2):85-89
1951 Brown, Bryce C. Eumeces anthracinus in Texas. Herpetologica 7:76
1952 Smith, Philip W. and Hobart M. Smith. Geographic variation in the lizard Eumeces anthracinus. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 34(11):679-694
1976 Hillis, David M. A hybrid Eumeces from Oklahoma. Bulletin of the Maryland Herpetological Society 11(4):177-178
1991 Collins, Joseph T. Amphibians and reptiles in the upper Mississippi river valley: Systematic and distributional problems. Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science 66(4):149-152
1998 Walley, Harlan D. Eumeces anthracinus. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (658):1-6
2005 Smith, Hobart M. Plestiodon: A replacement name for most members of the genus Eumeces in North America. Journal of Kansas Herpetology (14):15-16
2011 Brandley, Matthew C., Yuezhao Wang, Xianguang Guo, Adrian Nieto Montes De Oca, Manuel Feria-Ortiz, Tsutomu Hikda, and Hidetoshi Ota. Accommodating heterogenous rates of evolution in molecular divergence dating methods: An example using intercontinental dispersal of Plestiodon (Eumeces) lizards. Systematic Biology 60(1):2-15
2012 Brandley, Matthew C., Hidetoshi Ota, Tsutomu Hikida, Adrian Nieto Montes de Oca, Manuel Feria-Ortiz, Xianguang Guo, and Yuezhao Wang. The phylogenetic systematics of blue-tailed skinks (Plestiodon) and the family Scincidae. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 165(1):163-189

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Saturday 26 April 2025 23:12 CT