Differences in coloration between eastern and western populations of the Chinese cobra (Naja atra) in Taiwan have been noted by snake collectors, snake keepers, and users of Chinese traditional medicine, but have never been verified by scientific research. In this study, we quantified the amount of black pigment on ventral scales, and found prominent differences in ventral coloration of populations across Taiwan; populations in eastern Taiwan have black ventral scales while populations in the west are predominantly white. Previous studies have shown a similar east-west population differentiation in regards to venom components. We supplement these data with mitochondrial control region sequences, which show extremely low nucleotide diversity. Black-ventral and white-ventral snakes share major haplotypes and show no genetic differentiation. Nevertheless, moderate Fst and low Nm values between populations indicate low levels of gene flow. With a morphological fixation earlier than mitochondrial sequences on a relatively short evolutionary time scale, ventral coloration is potentially a result of local adaptation. Based upon the results of this study, along with traditional observations, we strongly recommend treating each of the four populations of the Chinese cobra in Taiwan as distinct ESUs. Reintroducing confiscated snakes from the illegal trade back into the wild needs to be halted to prevent artifical gene flow

Small isolated populations are vulnerable to both stochastic events and the negative consequences of genetic drift. For threatened species, the genetic management of such populations has therefore become a crucial aspect of conservation. Flying foxes (Pteropus spp, Chiroptera) are keystone species with essential roles in pollination and seed dispersal in tropical and subtropical ecosystems. Yet many flying fox species are also threatened, having experienced dramatic population declines driven by habitat loss and hunting. The insular Ryukyu flying fox (Pteropus dasymallus) ranges from the Ryukyu Archipelago of Japan through Taiwan to the northern Philippines and has undergone precipitous population crashes on several islands in recent decades. To assess the population genetic structure and diversity in P. dasymallus, and its likely causes, we analyzed mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA. Both markers showed significant genetic differentiation among most island populations, with mitochondrial haplotypes showing some mixing across the regions, likely reflecting historical colonization and/ or dispersal events. In contrast, microsatellite markers showed an overall pattern of | 549 CHEN Et al.

The Chinese green tree viper (Trimeresurus stejnegeri stejnegeri), one of the most common snakes in Southeast Asia, can be a good model species for evolutionary and behavioral research. However, there is no high polymorphic co-dominant marker that can be used for individual-based genetic analyses available for this species. Therefore, we developed 20 polymorphic microsatellite loci for T. s. stejnegeri in Taiwan by screening a microsatellite-enriched DNA library. The allele numbers of these loci ranged from 3 to 22, and the observed heterozygosity were 0.042-1.000. The probability of false parent non-exclusion was 2 × 10−5 for those loci that conformed to the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. These highly polymorphic microsatellite markers are useful for both individual-based and population-level analysis. Furthermore, this is the first set of microsatellite markers developed for Trimeresurus, and could be applied to closely related species to address various research questions on evolution and animal behavior.