Reptilia · Squamata
Plestiodon gilbertiVan Denburgh, 1896
Brown Skink
Photograph by Dominic, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Nearctic region, reaching 117 mm snout to vent.
Also called Gilbert's Skink.
Once published as Eumeces gilberti, Eumeces rubricaudatus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Plestiodon
- Grows to
- 117mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 6years
Longer than 85% of all skinks anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 24 to 500 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
39 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2007
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 6years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 31.5–31.6°C89–89 °F
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 29.15°C84 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 26.7–31.6°C80–89 °F
Murphy 2018
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 117mm4.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 79.5mm3.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 79.5mm3.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 32.5mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 32.5mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 34.82g1.2 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.5g0.02 oz
max 117 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2400m
- Range size
- 217,185km²
Arthropods and young of own species (e.g., Aguirre and Gatica 2010), arthropods (Stebbins and McGinnis 2018), insects (Grismer and Grismer 2022)
e.g., Rodda 2020
Leaf litter (see Sources (general) column)
near sea level to 2220 (e.g., Murphy 2018); 1310-2095 (Hall et al. 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 6.3eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–9eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6.3eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
3-9 (Stebbins and McGinnis 2012, Stebbins and McGinnis 2018, Murphy 2018), 5-9 (Aguirre and Gatica 2010), 3-8 mean 6.3 (Punzo 1982), up to 9 (Grismer and Grismer 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Plestiodon gilberti cancellosus (RODGERS & FITCH 1947) Plestiodon gilberti gilberti (VAN DENBURGH 1896) Plestiodon gilberti placerensis (RODGERS 1944) Plestiodon gilberti rubricaudatus (TAYLOR 1936)
- Described by
- Van Denburgh
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1896
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
18.5 in × 18.5 in × 11.5 in(47 × 47 × 29 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 4.5 in (117 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 89–89 °F (31.5–31.6 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
5kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 35 g, the heaviest recorded for Brown Skink — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Scincidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Plestiodon gilberti. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-gilberti
@misc{plestiodon_gilberti_2026,
title = {Plestiodon gilberti},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-gilberti}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.