04/02/2026
I just shot across your patio like a black streak with a blue tail. You probably screamed. That's fine. It happens.
I'm a five-lined skink. I've been living under your porch step for two years. I'm not a scorpion, I'm not venomous, and I can't sting. I'm the reason you don't have roaches coming through the foundation gap.
The blue tail is a decoy. When something attacks me, the bright color draws the strike away from my head. The tail snaps off at a built-in weak point, drops to the ground, and keeps twitching. The predator grabs the decoy. I disappear. It grows back — shorter, grayer, but I only needed the trick to work once.
As I age, the blue fades. Adult females keep faint stripes. Adult males turn plain olive-brown — and during breeding season, their heads flush bright orange-red. Most people never connect the neon juvenile and the plain brown adult. Same animal.
🦎 Here's the part that surprises people.
When I'm ready to lay eggs, I clear a small cavity under a rotting log or the edge of your shed. I coil around the clutch and I stay — for weeks. I remove any egg that goes bad so fungus doesn't spread to the healthy ones. I keep the humidity right. I turn them. I defend the nest against anything small enough to try.
Sometimes I nest with other females. We share the cavity and take turns — one guards while the others forage. The nest is rarely left alone.
When the babies hatch — black, striped, blue-tailed, the size of your little finger — I stay one more day. Then they're on their own. Running the same patio you'll flinch about next spring.
🌿 If you see me:
- Leave rotting logs, rock piles, and wood debris on your property. That's my habitat and my nesting site
- Don't spray insecticide around the foundation — you'll remove my food supply and I'll move on
- I'm harmless. A large skink can nip if grabbed, so just don't grab me
I've been under your porch for two years eating what tries to get inside your house. You didn't know I was there.
That's because I'm good at my job. 🌱
