An electrophoretic survey of samples of the gekkonid lizard, Gekko hokouensis, from the East Asian islands demonstrated that two genetically divergent, but morphologically almost identical, entities occur on five islands of the Okinawa Group, Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. These entities, while sharing all of the external character states diagnostic of G. hokouensis, exhibited fixed allele differences at six to eight out of 30 loci examined and great overall genetic distances [ Nei’s (1978)D = 0.489–0.654]. On Kumejima and Tonakijima Islands of the Okinawa Group, the two entities were collected together from identical microhabitats. These results indicate that the two entities represent separate biological species. Genetic comparisons of these two cryptic species from the Okinawa Group with ‘G. hokouensis’ from other island groups revealed that one occurs broadly in the insular region of East Asia, whereas the other is restricted to the Okinawa Group. Implications of the present findings for the morphological evolution of ‘G. hokouensis’ are also discussed.

中文翻译：

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利用等位酶数据在日本冲绳群岛的 Gekko hokouensis (Gekkonidae: Squamata) 中发现同域隐性物种

对来自东亚岛屿的壁虎蜥蜴样本的电泳调查表明，在日本琉球群岛的冲绳群岛的五个岛屿上出现了两个基因不同但形态几乎相同的实体。这些实体虽然共享 G. hokouensis 诊断的所有外部特征状态，但在所检查的 30 个基因座中的 6 到 8 个处表现出固定的等位基因差异，并且总体遗传距离很大 [Nei's (1978)D = 0.489–0.654]。在冲绳集团的久米岛和 Tonakijima 群岛，这两个实体是从相同的小生境中收集到的。这些结果表明这两个实体代表不同的生物物种。来自冲绳群的这两个神秘物种与 'G. 来自其他岛群的 hokouensis 显示，一种广泛存在于东亚的岛屿地区，而另一种则仅限于冲绳群岛。本研究结果对 'G. hokouensis' 也进行了讨论。