Plestiodon fasciatus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Jones, Dillon, Foshee, Bethany & Fitzgerald, Lee, 2021, A herpetological survey of Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary, Check List 17 (1), pp. 27-38 : 33

Plestiodon fasciatus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Examined material. UNITED STATES • 31 via sur- vey, 15 via iNaturalist; Texas, Harris County, Houston ; 29.7714°N, 095.5697°W; first encounter on 15 Dec. 2017; capture via transect survey .

Identification. This species is black with 5 white or yellow longitudinal stripes and a blue tail when young. With age, this pattern and color darkens and fades with males often, but not always, becoming nearly entirely brown. During the breeding season (spring) adult males exhibit orange-red coloring on the jaws. This species can be distinguished from Plestiodon laticeps (Schneider, 1801) by the presence of 4 labial scales as opposed to 5 and 26–30 longitudinal rows of scales around the midbody ( Powell et al. 2016). On one occasion we discovered an individual with 4 labials on one side of the jaw and 5 on the other, with 30 longitudinal rows of scales. Although Plestiodon laticeps was never discovered on surveys and only once on an iNaturalist report, we opted to only identify this individual down to genus and cannot confirm the pres- ence of P. laticeps on the property during our study.