THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Scincidae  

Great Plains Skink
Plestiodon obsoletus Baird and Girard, 1852

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: - 1.46 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Arizona Arkansas Colorado Iowa Kansas Missouri Nebraska New Mexico Oklahoma Texas

First instance(s) of published English names:
Spotted Lizard (Eumeces guttulatus: Yarrow, Henry C. 1876. List of Skeletons and Crania in the Section of Comparative Anatomy of the United States Army Medical Museum for use during the International Exhibition of 1876 in Connection with the Representation of the Medical Department U.S. Army. Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C. pp.); Skink (Eumeces guttulatus: Yarrow, Henry C. 1876. List of Skeletons and Crania in the Section of Comparative Anatomy of the United States Army Medical Museum for use during the International Exhibition of 1876 in Connection with the Representation of the Medical Department U.S. Army. Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C. pp.); Pale Lizard (Eumeces obsoletus: Yarrow, Henry C. 1876. List of Skeletons and Crania in the Section of Comparative Anatomy of the United States Army Medical Museum for use during the International Exhibition of 1876 in Connection with the Representation of the Medical Department U.S. Army. Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C. pp.); White-Spotted Skink (Eumeces guttulatus: 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); Sonoran Skink (Eumeces obsoletus: 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); Western Skink (Eumeces obsoletus: 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); White-spotted Skink (Plestiodon guttulatus: Van Denburgh, John. 1922. The Reptiles of Western North America: An Account of the Species Known to Inhabit California and Oregon, Washinton, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, British Columbia, Sonora, and Lower California. Volume I. Lizards. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. 556pp.); Sonoran Skink (Plestiodon obsoletus: Van Denburgh, John. 1922. The Reptiles of Western North America: An Account of the Species Known to Inhabit California and Oregon, Washinton, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, British Columbia, Sonora, and Lower California. Volume I. Lizards. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. 556pp.); Sonoran Skink (Plestiodon obsoletus: Strecker, John K., Jr. 1922. An annotated catalogue of the amphibians and reptiles of Bexar County, Texas. Bulletin Scientific Society of San Antonio (4):1-31); Great Plains Skink (Eumeces obsoletus: 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:
1852 Baird, Spencer F. and Charles Girad. Characteristics of some new reptiles in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, Second Part. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 6:125-129
1853 Hallowell, Edward. On a new genus and three new species of reptiles inhabiting North America. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 6:206–209
1929 Burt, Charles E. The synonymy, variation, and distribution of the Sonoran Skink, Eumeces obsoletus (Baird and Girard). Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan (201):18
1932 Kingman, R. H. A comparative study of the skull in the genus Eumeces of the family Scincidae. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 20(15):273-295
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
1943 Taylor, Edward H. Mexican lizards of the genus Eumeces, with comments on the recent literature on the genus. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 29(5):269-300
1971 Hall, Russell J. Ecology of a population of the Great Plains Skink (Eumeces obsoletus). University of Kansas Science Bulletin 48:357-388
1976 Hall, Russell J. Eumeces obsoletus. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (186):1-3
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
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
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 22:09 CT