. Current herpetology. Reptiles; Herpetology. 62 Current Herpetol. 22(2) 2003 of a single specimen from "Amakarima Island" (subsequently restricted to the Kerama Islands of the Okinawa Group by Stejneger [1907]). Van Denburgh (1912), in describing two subspecies, /. p. ishigakiensis and /. p. miyakensis, examined specimens only from Ishigakijima and Iriomotejima Islands for ishigakiensis, Miyakojima Island for miyak- ensis, and Okinawajima and Amamioshima Islands for the nominotypical subspecies. Although several subsequent authors referred to populations oiJ. polygonata on some othe
. Current herpetology. Reptiles; Herpetology. 62 Current Herpetol. 22(2) 2003 of a single specimen from "Amakarima Island" (subsequently restricted to the Kerama Islands of the Okinawa Group by Stejneger [1907]). Van Denburgh (1912), in describing two subspecies, /. p. ishigakiensis and /. p. miyakensis, examined specimens only from Ishigakijima and Iriomotejima Islands for ishigakiensis, Miyakojima Island for miyak- ensis, and Okinawajima and Amamioshima Islands for the nominotypical subspecies. Although several subsequent authors referred to populations oiJ. polygonata on some other islands (, Okada, 1937; Nakamura and Ueno, 1963; Ikehara et al, 1984; Toyama, 1985), or proposed infraspecific classification different from that proposed by Van Denburgh (1912) (Nakamura and Ueno, 1963; Matsu- moto, 1979; Ota, 1991), none of them investi- gated between-island variation in Japalura polygonata in detail. Yonagunijima Island (Fig. 1), a component of the Yaeyama Group, is the westernmost island of the Ryul<yus. Its herpetofauna, while sharing most species and subspecies exclu- sively with other southern Ryukyu islands (Yasukawa et al., 1996; Toda et al., 1997; Ota, 1998, 2000c; Chen et al, 2001), includes two endemic snakes (Calamaria pavimentata miyarai and Elaphe carinata yonaguniensis), whose closest relatives occur only in Taiwan and the southern part of the continent (Takara, 1962; Ota, 1998, 2000c). The occur- rence of Japalura polygonata on Yonagunijim Island was first noted in Okada's (1937) monograph on the basis of information from "KURODA". Curiously enough, however, Okada (1937), while introducing Van Den- burgh's (1912) subspecific classification of J. polygonata, retained the Yonagunijima popu- lation in the nominotypical subspecies (p. 93). Nakamura and Ueno (1963) also assigned the Yonagunijima population to J. p. polygonata. 126°E 124° 125*= 26 oN SENKAKU GROUP RYUKYU ARCHIPELAGO YAEYAMA GROUP Iriomotejima Island TAIWAN Yonagu
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