Skinks and pinks

Our second visit to the Eno River. [First visit here.] While I fished—bluegill and some brilliantly-coloured green sunfish; no Roanoke bass this time, either—Jessa wandered the banks of the Eno with her camera. And like last time, she found quite a few five-lined skinks.

The five-lined skinks are actually a complex of three species, all with broadly overlapping ranges that include central North Carolina: the broadhead skink Eumeces laticeps, the Southeastern five-lined skink E. inexpectatus, and the five-lined skink proper, E. fasciatus. Proper identification generally requires capturing the critter—hopefully not separating its easily-shed tail in the process—and carefully examining and counting scales. (And, of course, knowing what to look for.)

For our purposes, however, I'm comfortable with a rough-and-ready field ID. I'm prepared to call these fasciatus, the plain old five-lined skink; laticeps tends to be chunkier than the other two, and inexpectatus usually has a narrower mid-dorsal stripe. Jessa's skinks are lithe lizards with consistent stripes and brilliant blue tails; I'll stake my non-existent reputation on it.

[This one has lost part of its tail and looks to be re-growing it.]

Ah, but one of these is not like the others, yeah? Not a different skink, though: adult males tend toward olive-brown with muted stripes, and get some reddish-orange on their heads during the breeding season. (This is true of all three species in the complex, but if the others are fasciatus then this one is too, and again I'll stake my non-existent reputation on it.)

Another little ID challenge, though I didn't think so at the time: In my mind, these were obviously fire pinks, Silene virginica. (Yes, they're intense red—the camera can hardly do them justice—but the name "pink" is nothing to do with colour. The flower petals are notched, or "pinked", at the end—think of pinking shears.) We have a close relative, Silene regia, the royal catchfly, growing in our prairie garden, and I've often seen fire pinks in the Great Smoky Mountains. 

When, however, I consulted a field guide to confirm the identification, the photos showed virginica with a more elaborately pinked flower than these. Were these regia after all? The range map says no, they should definitely be virginica, and quite a few online photos purporting to be fire pinks show these same flowers. Others show the more elaborate bloom, with four or even six tips to the petals, so perhaps virginica has distinct flower forms?

I'm a firm believer in the notion that putting a name to something leads to a greater sense of appreciation and understanding; it's why I devote time and energy to these little puzzles. But the natural world is complex, and its inhabitants sometimes resist being put into neat boxes. To truly understand and appreciate nature, it may occasionally be necessary to shrug our shoulders and take the Juliet approach: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."

Just so long as we can agree that these are not roses...