Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Besides location what is the physical differences between E.m. murinus and E.m.gigas?

There appears to be very little difference. Both murinus and gigas, if even valid, show many similar morphological characteristics. A check of the ventral counts, dorsal scale rows, subcaudals, supralabials, and infralabials of each did not show enough variation to be significant. The only possible difference I have seen is that gigas, or the northern form, does tend to show yellow, orange, or red in the postocular stripe to an apparently greater degree than is seen in murinus, the amazon basin form, which tends to have a postocular stripe that closely matches the green ground color of the animal. A second generation captive bred and born litter of young produced here in 2001, all showed the same green postocular stripe as the female parent. The male, on loan from a friend, showed only a slight amount of orange in the postocular stripe. Unfortunately, the exact origin of the grandparents is unknown. Additionally, murinus reportedly reaches a larger adult size than gigas. This is a taxon that unfortunately has not been closely studied by very many individuals.

Kelly

n/p

Gary,
It was late and I forgot to mention in my previous post that I have the male green which produced the young in 2001 in with a different female this year that has a fairly bright orange postocular stripe. They have copulated numerous times over the last two months and she is now ovulating. It will be interesting to see what colors of postocular stripes is represented in the young from this litter. I will let you know. Thanks,

Kelly