Lizard I.D.

[JackSprat]

So I was tilling one of my raised beds, adding a bunch of new soil, and little tiller going all out;

Start laying out some rows for corn, pulling some deep furrows. Stick my hoe in a furrow to make it a little deeper, and the soil just starts bubbling up, and out pops this really big lizard, that was buried in the soil. No camera.

He was about 6 or 7 inches long, real fat, and the top view was pointed on both ends - no tail but it wasn't broken off- just the way he was/

Dark brown, with 3 (maybe 5) distinctive stripes running the length of his body, one right down the middle and the others equally spaced to the sides.

Other than the stripes, no real distinctive markings.

I'm wondering if he could have been in a bag of soil conditioner, which is nothing but ground up bark. Tiller sure didn't bother him.



He got gone in a hurry.

 

[Mr Bya Lungshot]

Broadhead skink? They get to that size or more and have lines that fade with age. Also look up 5 lined skinks and related species.

 

[JackSprat]

Broadhead skink? They get to that size or more and have lines that fade with age. Also look up 5 lined skinks and related species.

Could be a 5 lined skink. Now that I think about and looking at the pictures, the tiller may be the reason he had no tail.

They are diurnal ground-dwelling animals.

He was a fat thing.

 

[HM]

Now that I think about and looking at the pictures, the tiller may be the reason he had no tail.

They have the ability to pop their tails off as a defense mechanism if threatened

 

[carver]

Sounds like a common eastern fence lizard