BREVIORA Mmseuiinii of Coiniparative Zoology Cambridge, Mass. 24 November, 1967 Number 279 A SECOND SKINK WITH FRAGMENTED HEAD SCALES FROM BOUGAINVILLE, SOLOMON ISLANDS Allen E. Greer and Fred Parker ' One ot the most unusual skinks to come out of the Solomon Islands is Sphenomorphus taylori from the island of Bougainville. At the time of its description (Burt, 1930; based on 2 individuals from "Bougainville") the species was unique among skinks in having many of the normally large and symmetrical head scales broken up into a less ordered array of smaller scales (Fig. 3; fig. 21 in Burt and Burt, 1932). Eight more specimens of this species recently collected by Parker on Bougainville confirm that the fragmentation of the head scales is the normal condition for the species. During the same collecting efforts that yielded S. taylori, seven individuals of an as yet undescribed species of skink were taken by Parker on Bougainville. Among the distinctive features of this new species is the rather symmetrical fragmentation of the head scales on the dorsal and lateral surfaces of the snout. Although the presence of a supranasal scale would place the new species in either the genus Otosaurus or Parotosaurus in any of the most recent classifications of lygosomine skinks (Boulenger, 1887; M. A. Smith, 1937; Mittleman, 1952), recent work (by Greer; see Greer and Parker, 1967) on skink systematics indi-cates that these genera (along with the monotypic Insulasaurus) are not readily separable from a large group of Sphenomorphus (also see Burt and Burt, 1932: 542). Until the systematics of this group is better understood, we choose to reject the names Oto-saurus, Parotosaurus and Insulasaurus in favor of Sphenomorphus. ^ Department of District Administration, Kundiawa, Territory of New Guinea.
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