Reptilia · Squamata
Plestiodon tetragrammusBaird, 1859
Four-lined Skink
Photograph by Juan Cruzado Cortés, CC BY-SA, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating skink from the Nearctic region, reaching 78 mm snout to vent.
Also called Short-lined Skink.
Once published as Eumeces brevilineatus, Eumeces tetragrammus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Scincidae › Plestiodon
- Grows to
- 78mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 3.8years
Longer than 57% 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
41 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
- 3.8years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 28°C82 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28°C
Slavens and Slavens 1999
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 78mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 75mm3 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 54mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 23mm0.9 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 23mm0.9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 9.75g0.34 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.2g0.01 oz
max 76 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), Cruz-Elizalde et al. 2022b (max 78 mm)
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
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–12months
- Region
- Nearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2300m
- Range size
- 584,848km²
Arthropods (e.g., Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015)
Jones and Lovich 2009
(e.g., Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015) (or not? Garcia-Vazquez and Feria-Ortiz 2006)
Leaf Litter (e.g., Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 8.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 3–12eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.7–8.5eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.84per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.67–1per year
both Viviparous and Oviparous - but only a single reported litter, all other instances are of egg laying (Degenhardt et al. 1996) / oviparous (Werler 1951, Lemos-Espinal and Smith 2007, Jones and Lovich 2009, Dixon and Lemos-Espinal 2010), oviparous (Camilla Whittington an James Van Dyke, pers comm., July 2021)
5-12 (Dixon and Lemos-Espinal 2010, Lemos-Espinal and Dixon 2013), 3-12 (Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015), Cruz-Elizalde et al. 2022b (5.7 ± 0.33 range 5.0–6.0, n = 6)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Scincoidea
- Subspecies
- Plestiodon tetragrammus brevilineatus (COPE 1880) Plestiodon tetragrammus tetragrammus BAIRD 1859
- Described by
- Baird
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1859
- Type locality
- USA
Keeping one
12.5 in × 12.5 in × 7.75 in(31 × 31 × 20 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 3 in (78 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 82 °F (28 °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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 10 g, the heaviest recorded for Four-lined 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
- — 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
- — 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 tetragrammus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-tetragrammus
@misc{plestiodon_tetragrammus_2026,
title = {Plestiodon tetragrammus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/plestiodon-tetragrammus}
}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.