By
TODD McLEISH/ecoRI News contributor
 |
| Environmental scientist Emilie Holland recently found the Ocean State’s first documented lizard, a five-lined skink. (Courtesy photo) |
Emilie
Holland, an environmental scientist with the Federal Highway Administration and
president of the Rhode Island Natural History Survey, made the discovery and
immediately contacted other National History Survey board members with
expertise in identifying lizards.
“I
was just poking around when I saw the little guy,” she said. “I thought it was
a salamander at first, and I grabbed it really fast. When I opened my hand, I
thought it was going to be a mole salamander, but it didn’t move as fast as a
mole salamander normally would.”
When
University of Rhode Island herpetologist Nancy Karraker received a text and
photo of the lizard from Holland, she was in the middle of a virtual meeting.
“My
initial reaction was, how quickly can I get out of this meeting and go find
Emily to see it,” Karraker said.
The
five-lined skink is
typically found throughout the Southeast and Midwest, where it’s quite common.
Small numbers are also found in the Hudson Valley of New York and into western
Connecticut and western Massachusetts. But with the exception of a few
unconfirmed observations, they have never been recorded in Rhode Island.
Growing about 6 inches long with distinct brown and cream-colored stripes, the skinks have blue tails as juveniles, and adult males have a reddish throat. The one Holland found was a juvenile.
“The
blue tail is a defense mechanism,” said herpetologist Lou Perrotti, director of
conservation at Roger Williams Park Zoo. “A predator is going to attack the
brightest piece of the animal, and the lizard can drop its tail to get away. It
gives them a protection advantage.”
The
big question is how it arrived in Rhode Island: Did it arrive naturally on its
own, or was it brought to the area by humans, either intentionally or
unintentionally? Since it was found near railroad tracks and a lumberyard, many
possibilities are being considered.
“Skinks
love rocky woodlands where there’s lots of fallen timber,” Perrotti said. “And
they love railroad corridors because they’re typically lined with rocks that
are great for thermoregulation. Lizards love to climb out on the rocks.
“Was
it a stowaway on a train? Was it transported up here in lumber or mulch? We
don’t know. We need to find more specimens. Is it possible there’s a population
here? Absolutely. But unless you really look for them, they’re really hard to
find.”
Scott
Buchanan, a herpetologist with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental
Management, has contacted a colleague who studies Italian
wall lizards that have dispersed up the Northeast rail corridor, but
no skinks are known to have been found along the tracks.
Holland
hopes it arrived in Rhode Island on its own.
“The
child side of my brain says, ‘How cool would that be,’” she said. “But when I
stop to think about it, the likelihood is that it somehow got imported here.”
Karraker
agreed.
“It’s
not a range extension in the sense that it marched its way east to Rhode
Island,” she said. “My immediate thought is that it came in somebody’s mulch —
or some eggs did — or in a load of wood. There are enough people like me and
Lou and Scott and all my students who are constantly running around Rhode
Island looking for stuff, rolling over logs. If they were broadly distributed
in Rhode Island, we’d know about it.”
Another
possibility is that the skink was released by someone who kept it as a pet.
“Pretty
much every animal is in the pet trade, but I’ve spent time perusing Craig’s
List and I had my students investigating pet shops this semester, and I don’t
think this species turned up in anyone’s records,” Karraker said. “They’re not
something that tames easily, they’re very sensitive to people being around, and
they hide, so they don’t make a good pet.”
Because
the skink probably survived here in the winter, it raises additional
speculation. David Gregg, executive director of the Natural History Survey,
wonders whether the changing climate may have played a role in its survival in
the state.
“If
further research shows this is a breeding population and not just a lone
escapee, then however this particular population of skinks got to Rhode Island,
they never could have survived here before but now they can,” he said.
But
Karraker noted that some native populations of the skink in New York are nearly
as far north as the Adirondack Mountains, where it’s often colder than Rhode
Island, so she isn’t convinced climate change has played a role.
“I
don’t think it has anything to do with climate,” she said. “Something got moved
and the skink was in it, and Rhode Island isn’t a bad place to be. The skink
detected that there weren’t any other lizards here to compete with, and it
survived.”
The
next step for the group of herpetologists is to search the area for additional
specimens to determine how large the local population may be. Buchanan will be
screening the first specimen for diseases and conducting a genetic analysis to
determine from where it originated.
But
for now, the skink lives in an aquarium at Karraker’s house, where she is
feeding it termites.
“I
didn’t want to release it,” she said. “That’s a decision for DEM to make, not
me. So I’m just waiting to make the handoff to DEM to take charge and figure
out what to do with it.”