Reptilia · Squamata
Plestiodon septentrionalisBaird, 1858
Northern Prairie Skink
Photograph by Brett Ortler, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A day-active, meat-eating skink from the Nearctic region, reaching 90 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Eumeces septentrionalis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Plestiodon
- Grows to
- 90mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 7years
Longer than 68% 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
43 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
- 7years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 29.2°C85 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28.5–29.9°C83–86 °F
Seven years (http://www.naturenorth.com/Skink/COSEWIC_Status_Report_Prairie_Skink.pdf)
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 90mm3.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 72.3mm2.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 72.3mm2.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 24mm0.9 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 24mm0.9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 15.28g0.54 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.19g0.01 oz
max 90 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
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland
- Biome
- Temperate Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 5.5–7.5months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 230–1187m
- Range size
- 1,855,694km²
- Density
- 58–206per hectare
Invertebrates and small fish (Somma 1991), arthropods (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015, LeClere 2013), invertebrates (Sheldon 2022)
Mesquita et al. 2016, LeClere 2013
Basking, LeClere 2013
Leaf Litter / Fossorial (Dunham et al. 1988, Mesquita et al. 2016) / semifossorial (Somma 1990, implied in LeClere 2013)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 10.65eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–18eggs
- Mean clutch
- 6.6–14.7eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
- First breeds at
- 24–36months
mean 8.79 (Mesquita et al. 2016), 2-18 (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015), 6-12 (LeClere 2013, also mean of 12), 5-13 (Sheldon 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Plestiodon septentrionalis obtusirostris (BOCOURT 1879) Plestiodon septentrionalis pallidus (SMITH & SLATER 1949) Plestiodon septentrionalis septentrionalis (BAIRD 1858)
- Described by
- Baird
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1858
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
14 in × 14 in × 8.75 in(36 × 36 × 23 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 1.75 in (5 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 3.5 in (90 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 85 °F (29.2 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 15 g, the heaviest recorded for Northern Prairie 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
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — 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 septentrionalis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-septentrionalis
@misc{plestiodon_septentrionalis_2026,
title = {Plestiodon septentrionalis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-septentrionalis}
}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.