Description
The American Five-lined Skink is small to medium sized, growing to about 12.5 to 21.5 centimetres (4.9 to 8.5 in) total length. Young Five-lined Skinks are dark brown to black with five distinctive white to yellowish stripes running along the body and a bright blue tail. The blue color fades to light blue with age, and the stripes also may slowly disappear. The dark brown color fades, too, and older individuals are often uniformly brownish. The Southeastern Five-lined Skink, E. inexpectatus, of the Southeastern United States is very similar to this species and there is some overlap in range. The two species can be distinguished by their scales. The Broad-headed Skink, E. laticeps, is similar, and may be difficult to distinguish from E. fasciatus. The former species usually lacks the two enlarged postlabial scales characteristic of E. fasciatus (Palmer et al., 1995). Adult male Broad-headed skinks, with their large size and swollen red head, are readily distinguished from E. fasciatus (Beane, 2005).
Read more about this topic: Eumeces Fasciatus
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)