MORPHOLOGICAL AND GENETIC EVOLUTION APPEAR DECOUPLED IN PACIFIC SKINKS (SQUAMATA, SCINCIDAE, EMOIA)

It has been suggested recently that morphological and genetic evolutio n may be decoupled in skinks, resulting in morphological similarity be tween species despite extensive genetic divergence. Emoia cyanura and Emoia impar, recognized recently as cryptic species of skinks sympatri c throughout much of the Pacific, are here each shown to be composed o f several genetically distinct (on the basis of mitochondrial DNA sequ ences) but morphologically similar lineages. Furthermore, similarly co loured polymorphic individuals are found in both species, and these in dividuals have the same mtDNA haplotypes as their sympatric conspecifi cs. Although the morphological similarity of cryptic species is usuall y attributed to recent speciation, this is ruled out in the case off. cyanura and E. impar, as both species are more closely related genetic ally to other currently recognized species than they are to each other . We suggest a genetic review of current Pacific skink systematics, gi ven the possibility that morphologically indistinguishable populations may in fact represent cryptic species.