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The Philippine Expedition: Reptiles
The review of the systematics of the recent crocodilians by
Wermuth (1953) calls attention to the extremely close relationship
of the Philippine Crocodylus mindorensis with Crocodylus novae-
guineae. Crocodylus mindorensis is now known to be widely dis-
tributed in the Philippine Islands; Mertens (1943) found specimens
in the collections of the Senckenberg Museum from Luzon, Min-
danao, and Jolo. This wide range of mindorensis is paralleled by
that of novae-guineae, which was first known from the Sepik River,
on the northern watershed, but has now been reported from Papua
by myself (1932), with field observations by Wilfred Neill (1946)
from marshes north of Port Moresby. The New Guinean species
has not yet been traced into the western part of the island.
There appears no longer to be any question of the distinctness of
either mindorensis or novae-guineae from the wide-ranging porosus.
In its over-all range, from India to the Solomon Islands, Crocodylus
porosus broadly overlaps the ranges of the two fresh-water forms,
but it appears to be sharply isolated from them, where they meet,
by its predilection for salt and brackish water, for larger bodies of
fresh water, and for more open situations. Its failure to develop
distinguishable races is associated with its adjustment to salt water
and its capacity for swimming freely from island to island. It has
reached the New Hebrides and the Fijis, to the east of its normal
range, but it is not known to be permanently established in either
archipelago.
In the course of routine identification of the reptiles collected by
the Hoogstraal Philippine expedition of 1946 for Chicago Natural
History Museum, Dr. Robert F. Inger found that five specimens of
porosus and seven of mindorensis had been added to the crocodilian
material available for study in our collections. These are skins or
alcoholic juveniles, and Dr. Inger has called my attention to a
striking external difference between these species that does not
seem to have been previously discerned, namely, -the much larger
and hence fewer ventral scutes of mindorensis.
A total of seven specimens of skins or juveniles of Crocodylus
porosus is at hand. These are CNHM nos. 14346, 52363, 52364,
535
BioStor
