Reptilia · Squamata
Plestiodon reynoldsiStejneger, 1911
Florida Sand Skink
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A burrowing, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Nearctic region, reaching 65 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Neoseps reynoldsi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Plestiodon
- Grows to
- 65mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 10years
Longer than only 40% 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
42 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
- Vulnerable
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2007
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(iii)+2ab(iii)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Reduced
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 10years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 28–32°C82–90 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 30.7°C
Ashton 2005: 8-10, Meneken et al. 2005: 10
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 65mm2.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 55.5mm2.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 55.5mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 26mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 26mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2.16g0.08 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.1g0 oz
max 65 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
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Coniferous Forests
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 30–40m
- Range size
- 8146km²
- Density
- 125–650per hectare
Arthropods (mostly termites, Pianka and Vitt 2003)
Crepuscular / diurnal (Cooper 1953)/crepuscular in spring, diurnal in winter (Ashton and Telford 2006, Andrews 1994)
sand swimming (see Sources (general) column)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.75per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.5–1per year
- First breeds at
- 12–23months
e.g., Meneken et al. 2005, Feria‐Ortiz et al. 2022
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Stejneger
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1911
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
Florida Sand Skink is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
10 in × 10 in × 6.5 in(26 × 26 × 16 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 1.25 in (3 cm) deep.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 2.5 in (65 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 82–90 °F (28–32 °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.
0kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 2 g, the heaviest recorded for Florida Sand 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
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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 reynoldsi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-reynoldsi
@misc{plestiodon_reynoldsi_2026,
title = {Plestiodon reynoldsi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-reynoldsi}
}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.