7 4^ £67-? Vol. 85, No. 49, pp. 557-578 30 December 1972 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON THE KOREAN SNAKES OF THE GENUS AGKISTRODON (CROTALIDAE) By Howard K. Gloyd Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 For more than a century there has been confusion in the systematics of the Asiatic forms of Agkistrodon embraced by the halys-intermedius-blomhoffii complex within this genus. The publications of early typological taxonomists which have included descriptions of these snakes are in the main of little use at the present time. Some of the deficiencies of the early literature are due to limited material, unfortunate choice of diagnostic characters, failure to take into consideration the obvious sexual dimorphism in series of specimens, and neglect of the taxonomic importance of color patterns. Ecological knowledge was mostly nonexistent and the concept of the biological species had not yet developed. In more recent times, workers unable to use the Russian language at first hand found the important systematic works of such notable investigators as A. M. Nikol'skii, A. A. Emelianov, and S. C. Chernov dif-ficult of access. It is unlikely that any single investigator will be in a position to analyze thoroughly all populations of the species and sub-species of Agkistrodon that surely exist in the vast expanse of Central Asia from the Caspian Sea to Japan. Advances in the bionomics of this group of snakes will necessarily proceed slowly and piecemeal, and ultimately we must look to col-leagues in Europe and Asia for definitive studies. Some of the problems, however, can be separated, examined, and to some extent clarified, and an effort in this direction is the object of this preliminary paper dealing with Korea and adjacent areas — southern Manchuria and the eastern Khabarovsk region, U.S.S.R. 49— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 85, 1972 (557)
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