Anne Michelle Stipe, age 11, of Portland,Ore., for her question:

WHAT IS A SKINK?

We share our luxurious world with about 3,000 different lizards  and one fourth of them are classed as skinks. Though the skinks are very plentiful in other parts of the world, only about 20 of them are at home in North America. Most of these are rather small lizards with long skinny bodies and long skinny tails. All skinks have forked tongues and use them to track down their food.

Our Western skink has glassy brownish scales, with darker stripes down his back. He enjoys life in the Western mountains, all the way from Baja California to British Columbia. The sand skink of Florida has just one finger on each hand. Like most skinks he is a great burrower. Some of the skinks of other lands wear brilliant patches of color, and some have fancy frills of skin around their necks.