Something I was not aware of. Didn’t think we had any lizards at all up here in New York, except for the introduced Italian Wall Lizards. But there are actually four species in the state, three natives and the Italian, which I’ve seen in Queens. Both the Five-lined Skink and the Eastern Fence Lizard are found in the Hudson Highlands (although why the parks people had to go to Ohio for a picture I don’t know). Now I have to find them. Stay tuned for a sunny day in the spring.
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This work by Matthew Wills is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
It is interesting that the illustration is from Ohio – I lived in Ohio for twenty-two years without ever laying eyes on a skink or fence lizard, although I’m aware that the DNR says they’re present in the state.
Elusive…
We saw several blue-tailed skinks in the Bear Mountain area this summer.
We have Five-lined Skinks in Ontario, so it doesn’t surprise me that you’d have them in New York. I saw one at Rondeau Park once, but it disappeared so fast that I never got a picture.
Come out to my Ozark woods and you can see both of them readily.