The lament from an old country song ,"You slip through my fingers just like quicksilver," describes the most unusual-appearing of the American skinks perfectly.
Long placed in the monotypic genus
Neoseps, the Florida sand skink is now known as
Plestiodon reynoldsi. This fossorial skink is highly specialized for a life of burrowing in the sugar-sand locales (often low dunes) of central Florida.
Although four limbs are present, they are tiny. The forefeet bear only a single toe each and the slightly larger rear limbs bear two toes each.
The eyes are small and the lower eyelids each have a transparent "window." Despite the very real limb-size reduction, this silvery 3-1/2 to 5 inch long lizard is alert, remarkably agile, and very difficult to hold.
Whether found by accident or as the result of a concerted effort its response to the light is immediate and decisive: it dives headfirst into the sugar-sand and within a fraction of a second has disappeared into the substrate for which it is so very well-adapted -- and named.
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