Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi-

We found this little guy in our bedroom this weekend- we had recently seen him outside the front door but hadn't captured him. Our home is in San Diego at the beach. When we first saw him he was right on the front door jam, and scurried away to the planted area by our sidewalk.

Sorry about the horrible picture quality. I'll describe him as best I can:

He's about 3-4 inches long (incl. tail), dark brownish sides. Has kind of a wide rusty orange or copper stripe that extends from the top of his head down the top length of his body and tail, with stripes of this orangish color extending down his ribs. Also some small spots of the rusty color along his sides.

Flat, pointed head. Skin appears to be dry and not at all slimy. I can't see how many toes he has, but at least 3-4, with one of the middle ones being slightly longer, it seems.

Note- on a whim, my wife threw one or two small crickets into the temporary cage I had him in (we keep them on hand for our Fire Belly Toads), and he immediately pounced on them, so he appears to be a carnivore.

Housing: I have just transferred him to a 2 gallon plastic hexagon tank, with a layer of large gravel at the bottom, about 1 inch of water with an airstone under the gravel to keep it fresh (somewhat), and a large piece of black lace rock or "pot rock" to make a land mass to crawl on. I threw in some more small crickets but he currently has no interest in them, might not be hungry now.

Thanks to anyone who can help me ID this animal- I never planned on getting a lizard so I have no idea what's in this tank. If I can get a positive ID on the creature then I'll be able to find a care-sheet for him and see set up my tank for him.

Oh, thats not easy. From the blurry pic it looks like a skink or an alligator lizard.
To my knowledge there are only two skink species in San Diego county, Gilbert's Skink (Eumeces gilberti) and Western Skink (Eumeces skiltonianus ) -both do not look similar to the pic.
The only Alligator lizar with legs in the San diego area is Elgarias multicarinata, which again looks different-colour pattern may be similar in Elgaria-but the specimen on the pic looks too smooth-or isd it more rough scaled than the pic suggests?.
So my best guess is Elgaria multicarinata hatchling....but may be also an escaped pet?
Please try to get a better Pic.

Gilbert's Skink- this one is a possibility.

After researching a bit about this one- a friend found a site that describes this animal-

http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/BFS/main/SMER/HERPS/EUGI.html

That site states in part "Juveniles: Light stripes on sides and dorsum enclosing a broad black or brown stripe; dark stripe stops near base of waxy-pink tail; stripes fade with growth and maturation."

I had originally dismissed the Gilbert's after looking for images of it, because the pics I found don't look like my lizard. But that description sounds pretty accurate- the pics I found are probably all of adult specimens and mine is almost certainly a hatchling or sub-adult.

So now I need to try to get pics of a juvenile so I can confirm whether this is what I have or not. In the meantime I will attempt to take a better picture of our little specimen, and in case it is a Gilbert's I'll also start looking for caresheets on them. I'm guessing I'll be converting my tank to a more desert terrarium set up, with sand and maybe some driftwood.

Thanks for the clues- if I can get a better pic I'll upload it.