Somatic chromosomes of two representative species of the genus
Hynobius are observed. The diploid number of
H.
naevius and
H. nebulosus are confirmed to have 56. Twenty-eight pairs of homologues are classified into four groups to facilitate the comparison of each karyotype. The chromosome morphology constituting both karyotypes is similar in general, but not identical with each other. An unambiguous difference occurs in the medium-sized chromosomes (nos. 10-13). Consequently, it results the different fundamental number (FN) to two species, 90 for
H. nebulosus and 92 for
H. naevius. The karyotype of
H. nebulosus, which is the most common species and is widely distributed in the western Japan, is not exactly the same with that of a previous work. The minor difference found in the small-sized chromosome groups (nos. 14-18 and 19-28) suggests the microchromosomal variation according to the difference of the locality.
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