July 22

This is a female fence lizard.

Hey guys first day back in South Carolina and it started at Long Tin tin. We lifted all of the metal coverboards and found a juvenile 5-lined skink (Scincella fasciatus), which was so tiny it was the length of my pinky finger. We also caught a female fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus), she was chunky and has a wicked bite. Kaety had a her hand on top of her but couldn’t get a grab so I picked her up and she turn and bit my finger. She didn’t break the skin but it’s now bruised. Neither had ticks but the scelop had a re-grown tail.
After this we opened the pitfalls at all three sites and flagged at Long Tin site. We only caught one larval tick. More research needs to be on when is the best time to flag. Later today we went back and opened and bated the mammal traps. Fingers crossed we catch a lot of animals tomorrow!