THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Scincidae  

Little Brown Skink
Scincella lateralis (Say, in James, 1822 “1823”)

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 Jackson et al. (2017, Systematic Biology 66: 799–812) reanalyzed the nuclear sequence data from previous studies using phylogeographic models in the software PHRAPL and found support for three species with gene flow between central and eastern lineages along with relatively low levels of divergence. Leaché et al. (2019, Systematic Biology 68: 168–181) reanalyzed the same data using a hierarchical procedure based on heuristic genealogical divergence index (gdi) delimitation criteria with gdi values calculated from parameters estimated using the software BPP and found no support for multiple species.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2025.03.14.14.59.11)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.09 MB

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

First instance(s) of published English names:
Ground Lizard (Oligosoma laterale: 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.); Ground Lizard (Oligosoma laterale: Coues, Elliott and Henry C. Yarrow. 1878. Notes on the natural history of Fort Macon, N. C. and Vicinity (No. 4). Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 30():21-28); Ground Lizard (Oligosoma laterale: Jordan, David S. 1878. 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. Second Edition, Revised, and Enlarged. Jansen, McClurg & Company, Chicago. pp.); Brown-back Ground Lizard (Oligosoma laterale: 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); Brown-backed Lizard (Lygosoma laterale: Hay, Oliver P. 1892. Batrachians and Reptiles of the State of Indiana. Pages 409-624 in 17th Annual Report of the Indiana Department of Geology and Natural Resources, William B. Burford, Printer and Binder, Indianapolis, Indiana. pp.); Ground Lizard (Oliosoma laterale: Garman, H. 1892. A synopsis of the reptiles and amphibians of Illinois. Illinois Laboratory of Natural History Bulletin 3():215-403); Ground Swift (Oligosoma laterale: Rhoads, Samuel N. 1895. Contributions to the zoology of Tennessee. No. 1, Reptiles and amphibians. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 47():376-407); Black Banded Lizard (Leioiopisma laterale: Fowler, Henry W. 1907. The amphibians and reptiles of New Jersey. MacCrellish and Quigley, Trenton, N. J.. 29-250pp.); Ground Lizard (Leiolopisma laterale: Hurter, Julius. 1911. Herpetology of Missouri. Transactions of the Academy of Science St. Louis 20(5):59-274); Ground Lizard (Leiolepisma laterale: Brimley, Clement S. 1915. List of reptiles and amphibians of North Carolina. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 30(4):195-206); Ground Lizard (Leiolepisma laterale: 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); Little Brown Skink (Lygosoma laterale: 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:
1822 James, Edwin. Account of an expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the years 1819 and ‘20, by order of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Sec’y of War: under the command of Major Stephen H. Long. From the notes of Major Long, Mr. T. Say, and other gentlemen of the exploring party. Compiled by Edwin James, botanist and geologist for the expedition. In two vols. – with an atlas. [Volume 2]. Henry Charles Carey and Isaac Lea, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 442, with supplementary chapters and an appendix.pp.
1950 Mittleman, M. Budd. The generic status of Scincus lateralis Say, 1823. Herpetologica 6(2):17-24
1975 Brooks, Garnett R. Scincella lateralis. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (169):1-4
1996 Dundee, Harold A. Some reallocations of type localities of reptiles and amphibians described from the Major Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, with comments on some of the statements made in the account written by Edwin James.  Tulane Studies in Zoology and Botany 30:75–89
2010 Jackson Nathan D. and Christopher C. Austin. The combined effects of rivers and refugia generate extreme cryptic fragmentation within the common ground skink (Scincella lateralis). Evolution 64:409–428
2012 Becker, Brian M. and Mark A. Paulissen. Sexual dimorphism in head size in the Little Brown Skink (Scincella lateralis). Herpetological Conservation and Biology 7(2):109–114
2012 Jackson, Nathan D. and Christopher C. Austin. Inferring the evolutionary history of divergence despite gene flow in a lizard species, Scincella lateralis (Scincidae), composed of cryptic lineages. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 107:192–209
2017 Jackson, Nathan D., Bryan C. Carstens, Ariadna E. Morales, and Brian C. O'Meara. Species delimitation with gene flow. Systematic Biology 66(5):799-812
2019 Murray, Christopher M., Allison Litmer, Matthew Grisnik, Mackenzie L. Sconyers, and Craig Guyer. Head shape variation among cryptic populations of Ground Skinks (Scincella lateralis). Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 57(4):877-883
2019 Leaché, Adam D., Tianqi Zhu, Bruce Rannala, and Ziheng Yang. The spectre of too many species. Systematic Biology 68(1):168-181

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Saturday 26 April 2025 21:41 CT