Abstract

Careful investigations of live coloration and other characters in the eublepharid gecko Goniurosaurus kuroiwae orientalis from Tonakijima Island, the type locality of the subspecies in the Central Ryukyus, Japan, revealed its slight but consistent external differences from the consubspecific Tokashikijima population, whose phylogenetically divergent status against the former had been strongly suggested in a previous molecular study. A new subspecies, Goniurosaurus kuroiwae sengokui subsp. nov., is thus described for the Tokashikijima population. In life, Goniurosaurus k. sengokui subsp. nov. can be discriminated from G. k. orientalis in showing tint of reddish or pinkish, instead of yellowish, coloration in dorsal body pattern, and also usually darker and more or less reddish, instead of yellowish or grayish, iris in both adults and juveniles. Recalculation of sequence data at hand with relevant GenBank data confirmed substantial sequence divergences of G. k. sengokui from all other congeneric taxa of the Ryukyus described so far.

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