Emoia reimschisseli Tanner, 1950

Karin, Benjamin R., Stubbs, Alexander L., Arifin, Umilaela, Bloch, Luke M., Ramadhan, G., Iskandar, Djoko T., Arida, Evy, Reilly, Sean B., Kusnadi, Agus & Mcguire, Jimmy A., 2018, The herpetofauna of the Kei Islands (Maluku, Indonesia): Comprehensive report on new and historical collections, biogeographic patterns, conservation concerns, and an annotated checklist of species from Kei Kecil, Kei Besar, Tam, and Kur, Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 66, pp. 704-738 : 723-724

Emoia reimschisseli Tanner, 1950

Type locality. Morotai , Indonesia .

Distribution in the Kei Islands. We collected a large series of Emoia reimschisseli from Kei Kecil, and also collected this species on Kei Besar and Kur.

Natural history. This species was extremely common in the leaf litter and among rotting logs of secondary growth forest in rocky soil.

Field identification. A small to medium sized skink with three narrow, yellow longitudinal stripes on a blackish dorsum. Tail bright blue in juveniles, white to dirty white in adults. Emoia reimschisseli shows nearly identical morphology to E. caeruleocauda and E. cyanura with which Kei Islands specimens have been formerly been referred to. They are distinguished only by the number of subdigital lamellae and in some populations by the number of midbody scale rows (though mid-body scale rows often do not differ) ( Brown, 1991; How et al., 1998). 29–35 mid-body scale rows (rarely more than 30); 32–39 rounded lamellae under the fourth toe; SVL 39–57 mm ( Brown, 1991).

Remarks. Originally reported as Emoia cyanura ( Doria, 1875; Roux, 1910; de Rooij, 1915), the WAM expedition to Kei Besar reported a subsequently described yellowlined Emoia , E. reimschisseli ( How et al., 1998) . Emoia reimschisseli was described from Morotai and Halmahera ( Tanner, 1950), and also inhabits the Aru Islands and a single specimen was collected from Selaru in the Tanimbar group that is morphologically divergent and may represent a distinct species ( How et al., 1998).