Takydromus toyamai
The Miyako grass lizard is a green grass lizard, with an emerald green body and no white lines along the sides. It possesses three pairs of chin shields and one pair of femoral pores. This beautiful green grass lizard is only found on Miyako Island and Irabu Island in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. It was published by Nobuyuki Takeda and Professor Hidetoshi Ota in 1996. In the wild, there are few and scattered populations. As such, this species has been listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In recent years, poaching of these grass lizards to sell as pets and threats from exotic predator species have led to continuing decline in its wild populations.
Reptile research fact: Hidetoshi Ota is a modern-day expert in East Asian reptiles. He has used morphological and molecular techniques to sort out the classification of many reptile taxa. He is also a pioneer in the rearrangement of grass lizard taxa. In recent years, in honor of his contribution to herpetological research, a new species of tree frog in Taiwan (Buergeria otai) has been named for him.
