THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Scincidae  

Mole Skink
Plestiodon egregius Baird, 1859 “1858”

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: 2023.04.10.08.04.16)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.41 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Alabama Florida Georgia

First instance(s) of published English names:
Florida Skink (Eumeces egregius: 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); Cope's Skink (Eumeces onocrepis: 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); Floridan Skink (Eumeces egregius: Davis, N. S. Jr. and Frank L. Rice. 1883. Descriptive catalogue of North American batrachia and reptilia, found east of Mississippi River. Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 1(5):71); Florida Red-tailed Skink (Eumeces egregius: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Striped Red-tailed Skink (Eumeces egregius egregius: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Brown Red-tailed Skink (Eumeces egregius onocrepis: 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:
1859 Baird, Spencer F. Description of new genera and species of North American lizards in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution. [1858] Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 10:253-256
1936 Taylor, Edward H. A taxonomic study of the cosmopolitan scincoid lizards of the genus Eumeces, with an account of the distribution and relationships of its species. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 23(1):1-643
1957 McConkey, Edwin H. The subspecies of Eumeces egregius, a lizard of the southeastern United States. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 2(2):13-23
1965 Mount, Robert H. Variation and systematics of the scincoid lizard, Eumeces egregius (Baird). Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 9(5):183-213
1968 Mount, Robert H. Eumeces egregius. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (73):1-2
1991 Collins, Joseph T. Viewpoint: A new taxonomic arrangement for some North American amphibins and reptiles Herpetological Review 22(2):42-43
2000 Griffith, Hugh, Andre Ngo and Robert W. Murphy. A cladistic evaluation of the cosmopolitan genus Eumeces Weigmann (Reptilia, Squamata, Scincidae) Russian Journal of Herpetology 7(1):1-16
2003 Branch, L. C., A. -M. Clark, Paul E. Moler, and B. W. Bowen. Fragmented landscapes, habitat specificity, and conservation genetics of three lizards in Florida scrub. Conservation Genetics 4:199-212
2004 Schmitz, Andreas, Patrick Mausfeld, and Dirk Embert. Molecular studies on the genus Eumeces Weigmann, 1834: Phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic implications Hamadryad 28(1-2):73-89
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
2005 Brandley, Matthew C., Andreas Schmitz, and Todd W. Reeder. Partitioned Bayesian analyses, partition choice, and the phylogenetic relationships of Scincid Lizards. Systematic Biology 54(3):373–390
2006 Richmond, J. Q. Evolutionary basis of parallelism in North American scincid lizards. Evolution & Development 8(6):477–490
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 Schrey, Aaron W., Kyle G. Ashton, Stacy Heath, Henry R. Mushinsky, and Earl D. McCoy. Range-wide genetic analysis of the threatened Bluetail Mole Skink Identifies similar genetic structure with sympatric lizards. Journal of Herpetology 46(2):241-247
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
2014 Crother, Brian I. The bold taxonomic hypotheses of Collins (1991): 23 years later. Herpetological Review 45(2):268-272

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Saturday 26 April 2025 23:14 CT