168 LIZARDS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



c^. Four supraoculars. 



c?. Forty to 42 scale rows; 21 lamellae; 168 millimeters in len^h. 



S. arborens Taylor (p. 186). 

 d\ Thirty scale rows; 10 lamellae; 64 millimeters in length. 



S. atrigularis Stejneger (p. 196). 

 c\ Five supraoculars. 



d^. Twenty-eight scale rows; 22 lamellae; 183 millimeters in length. 



S. fasciatus (Gray) (p. 188). 

 d\ Forty scale rows; 22 lamellae; 114 millimeters in length. 



S. lednickyi Taylor (p. 190). 

 d\ Thirty-eight to 44 scale rows; 23 lamellae; 270 millimeters in 



length S. jagorii (Peters) * (p. 192). 



d*. Thirty-two scale rows; 17 unicarinate lamellae; 116 millimeters 

 in length S. mindanensis Taylor (p. 198). 



The arrangement of the species within the key is rather mis- 

 leading as it brings together species that have nothing in com- 

 mon save the position and number of the frenals, and a similar 

 condition of the frontoparietal. Thus the two forms Spheno- 

 morphus acutus and S, curtirostris are probably least closely 

 related. 



Just what the actual relationship is among the species of this 

 genus is largely a matter of conjecture. It appears that S. 

 acutus, S. atrigularis, S. fasciatus, and S. hiparietalis have no 

 close relationship among the other Philippine species. It is not 

 improbable that more than one species has been included under 

 the name of S. steerei. 



SPHENOMORPHUS ACUTUS (Peters) 



Plate 14, fig. 2 



Lygosoma (Hinulia) acutum Peters, Mon. Berl. Ak. (1864) 54. 

 Hinulia acutum Gunther, Proc. Zool. Soc. London (1879) 76. 

 Lygosoma acutum Boulenger, Cat. Liz. Brit. Mus. 3 (1887) 248. 

 BOETTGER, Ber. ,Senck. Nat. Ges. (1886) 100. 



Description of species. — (From No. 500, E. H. Taylor collec- 

 tion; collected at Bunawan, Agusan, Mindanao, 1912, by E. H. 

 Taylor.) Habit lacertiform, slender; head pointed; fronto- 

 nasal very large, forming a suture with rostral but minutely 

 separated from frontal; prefrontals large, barely in contact; 

 bordered by three frenals laterally; no supranasal; frontal 

 elongate, not or scarcely as wide as supraocular region, longer 

 than distance to end of snout, less than the combined parietal 

 length ; six supraoculars, first the longest and in contact with pre- 

 frontal, third widjest, first three touching frontal; frontopa- 



* Sphenomorphus jagorii varies in the condition of the frontoparietal ; 

 it is single in S. jagorii divergens Taylor. See descriptions. 



