earticle

영어

In order to evaluate the sexual morphometric size dimorphism of Scincella vandenburghi in Korea, we investigated the morphometirc characteristics of 29 male and 19 female lizards collected from 11 localities between March 2008 and April 2010 As the morphometric characteristics, we used the snout-vent length (SVL), head length (HL), head width (HW), head height (HH), axilla-groin length (AGL), forelimb length (FLL), hindlimb length (HLL) and tail length (TL) of the lizards. The morphometric characteristics between males and females were significantly different in the HL, HW, HH, AGL and FLL. In special, males had significantly larger and higher head than had females when the body length was the same, but females had larger AGL than had males. The larger head in male lizards might be associated with both intra- and inter-sexual selection and the longer AGL of female lizards might be an adaptation for increasing fecundity. The difference in sexual dimorphism between females and males of Scincella vandenburghi may increase our understanding of how the characteristics evolve and are maintained.