Reptiles at Risk

Prairie Skink Research with Dr. Pamela Rutherford

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on August 21, 2006 at 1:55 AM

We left Saskatchewan late Thursday night, after doing programs in Weyburn and Estevan, and drove over to the Spruce Woods area. We had arranged to meet with Dr. Pamela Rutherford, from Brandon University, who is conducting research on the prairie skink, early the next morning. Since we didn't arrive until very late (about 3AM), we just went straight to the study site and slept in the back of the van. The new fold-flat seats sure are great! We met Dr. Rutherford, her family, and one of her students, Jory, in the morning, and set off for the site to find some skinks!

It turned out to be a great day for skinks, as we caught quite a few- mostly juveniles with their bright blue tails. Like many skinks, these lizards have this blue tail colour which is lost with age- usually 2 years in this species. The adults have stripes along the body. Catching skinks has to be done very gently, to avoid having them drop their tails- a defensive tactic used by many lizards. Since lizards store fat reserves in their tails, losing them could mean that they won't make it through the long winter hibernation, since they cannot regrow them very quickly. We were very careful, and did not have any tail drops resulting from our captures! A picture of me holding one of the skinks is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scisnake/220765154/. After capture, Dr. Rutherford and Jory weighed and measured all of the specimens, and then marked them, so that if they are captured again in the future they can see how much they've grown. Over time, this kind of mark-recapture study can also be used to estimate the size of the population. Mark-recapture studies are a very useful tool in wildlife biology, and I'm sure a quick internet search on the subject would turn up lots of great information for anyone who is interested. Pictures of the processing of the skinks are also up in the flickr gallery, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scisnake/220765151/. We also found a red-bellied snake, which we had not yet seen on our tour, though they are quite common in some parts of Ontario, including where we are from. Still, it was great to see one in Manitoba, and a picture of it is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scisnake/220771853/. These secretive snakes don't come out much during the day, preferring to hide under cover such as rocks and logs. They eat worms and slugs, and occasionally snails. They are the smallest species of snake in Canada; the one we found is not a baby, but a small adult! We would have liked to stay longer, but we had two programs to do in Portage la Prairie later in the day, so we had to get on the road by noon. We left the others at the site since they still had lizards to process and release, but they were very happy we helped to create more work for them!

The Portage la Prairie recreation programs went well, as did the next day's program at Fort la Reine Museum's Heritage Days. A good tie-in, as their theme this year was science then and now! Only one more show here in town, at the shopping mall, and then we hit the road for Winnipeg. We'll be on Breakfast Television on City TV in the morning, as well as doing an interview with a local radio station, before heading over to the Portage Place shopping mall for our 1:00 program.