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Crotalus tancitarensis. The Tancítaro cross-banded mountain rattlesnake is a small species (maximum recorded total length = 434 mm) known only from the upper elevations (3,220–3,225 m) of Cerro Tancítaro, the highest mountain in Michoacán, Mexico, where it inhabits pine-fir forest (Alvarado and Campbell 2004; Alvarado et al. 2007). Cerro Tancítaro lies in the western portion of the Transverse Volcanic Axis, which extends across Mexico from Jalisco to central Veracruz near the 20°N latitude. Its entire range is located within Parque Nacional Pico de Tancítaro (Campbell 2007), an area under threat from manmade fires, logging, avocado culture, and cattle raising. This attractive rattlesnake was described in 2004 by the senior author and Jonathan A. Campbell, and placed in the Crotalus intermedius group of Mexican montane rattlesnakes by Bryson et al. (2011). We calculated its EVS as 19, which is near the upper end of the high vulnerability category (see text for explanation), its IUCN status has been reported as Data Deficient (Campbell 2007), and this species is not listed by SEMARNAT. More information on the natural history and distribution of this species is available, however, which affects its conservation status (especially its IUCN status; Alvarado-Díaz et al. 2007). We consider C. tancitarensis one of the pre-eminent flagship reptile species for the state of Michoacán, and for Mexico in general. Photo by Javier Alvarado-Díaz. Amphib. Reptile Conserv. | http://amphibian-reptile-conservation.org 128 September 2013 | Volume 7 | Number 1 | e71
Copyright: © 2013 Alvarado-Díaz et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which permits unrestricted use for non-commercial and education purposes only provided the original author and source are credited. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 7(1): 128–170. Patterns of physiographic distribution and conservation status of the herpetofauna of Michoacán, Mexico 1 Javier Alvarado-Díaz, 2 Ireri Suazo-Ortuño, 3 Larry David Wilson, and 4 Oscar Medina-Aguilar 1,2,4 Instituto de Investigaciones sobre los Recursos Naturales, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Av. San Juanito Itzícuaro s/n Col. Nva. Esperanza, Morelia, Michoacán, MÉXICO, 58337 3 Centro Zamorano de Biodiversidad, Escuela Agrícola Panamericana Zamorano, Departamento de Francisco Morazán, HONDURAS Abstract.—At their respective levels, the country of Mexico and the state of Michoacán are major centers of herpetofaunal diversity and endemicity. Three of us (JAD, ISO, OMA) conducted extensive fieldwork in Michoacán from 1998 to 2011, and recorded 169 herpetofaunal species. With additional species reported in the literature and specimens available in scientific collections, the number of species in Michoacán has grown to 215. We examined the distribution of these species within the framework of the five physiographic provinces within the state, i.e., the Coastal Plain, the Sierra Madre del Sur, the Balsas-Tepalcatepec Depression, the Transverse Volcanic Axis, and the Central Plateau, which briefly are characterized geomorphologically and climatically. The herpetofauna consists of 54 amphibians and 161 reptiles (17.5% of the total for Mexico), classified in 38 families and 96 genera. Almost one-half of Michoacán’s herpetofaunal species occur in a single physiographic province, and the percentage of species decreases with an increase in the number of provinces. The province with the most species is the Sierra Madre del Sur, with slightly fewer numbers in the Balsas-Tepalcatepec Depression and the Transverse Volcanic Axis. An intermediate number is found in the Coastal Plain, and the lowest in the Central Plateau province. We constructed a Coefficient of Biogeographic Resemblance matrix and found the greatest degree of herpetofaunal resemblance between the Balsas-Tepalcatepec Depression and the Sierra Madre del Sur. The greatest resemblance of the Coastal Plain herpetofauna is to that of Balsas-Tepalcatepec Depression, that of the Transverse Volcanic Axis to that of the Central Plateau, and vice versa. Of the species limited to one physiographic province, 47 occur only in the Transverse Volcanic Axis, 23 in the Coastal Plain, 15 in the Balsas-Tepalcatepec, 14 in the Sierra Madre del Sur, and one in the Central Plateau. We employed three systems for determining the conservation status of the herpetofauna of Michoacán: SEMARNAT, IUCN, and EVS. Almost one-half of the species in the state are not assessed by the SEMARNAT system, with the remainder allocated to the Endangered (four species), Threatened (31), and Special Protection (79) categories. The IUCN system provides an assessment for 184 of the 212 native species, allocating them to the Critically Endangered (five species), Endangered (10), Vulnerable (12), Near Threatened (four), Least Concern (127), and Data Deficient (26) categories. The EVS system provides a numerical assessment for all of the native non-marine species (four marine species occur in the state), with the values ranging from three to 19. The resulting 208 species were placed in low, medium, and high categories of vulnerability, as follows: low (17 amphibians, 39 reptiles); medium (23 amphibians, 45 reptiles); and high (13 amphibians, 71 reptiles). The EVS system is the only one that provides an assessment for all the species (except for the four marine taxa), as well as the only one that considers the distributional status of Michoacán’s herpetofauna (state-level endemic, country-level endemic, and non-endemic). Furthermore, the values indicate that ca. 40% of the state’s herpetofauna is categorized at the highest level of environmental vulnerability. Based on these conclusions, we provide recommendations for protecting Michoacán’s herpetofauna in perpetuity. Key words. Amphibians, reptiles, physiographic provinces, conservation status, recommendations Correspondence. Emails: 1 jvr.alvarado@gmail.com (Corresponding author) 2 ireri.suazo@gmail.com 3 bufodoc@aol.com 4 mineo_osc@hotmail.com Amphib. Reptile Conserv. | http://amphibian-reptile-conservation.org 129 September 2013 | Volume 7 | Number 1 | e71
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Published in the United States of A
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Copyright: © 2013 Wilson. This is
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field, they managed to secure prese
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Xenosaurus tzacualtipantecus. The Z
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Wilson et al. construido ocho recom
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Wilson et al. terms of taxonomic br
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Wilson et al. which many of the cri
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Wilson et al. The following 18 taxa
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Wilson et al. Rhadinella lachrymans
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Table 1. IUCN Red List categorizati
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Wilson et al. evaluated on the webs
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Families Number of species Environm
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Wilson et al. Crotalus catalinensis
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Wilson et al. Xantusia sanchezi. Th
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Wilson et al. of the reptiles of Me
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Wilson et al. fully comply with the
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Wilson et al. Diversidad y Endemism
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Wilson et al. Appendix 1. Compariso
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Wilson et al. Barisia herrerae* EN
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Wilson et al. Anolis unilobatus NE
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Wilson et al. Sceloporus heterolepi
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Wilson et al. Plestiodon callicepha
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Wilson et al. Xantusia gilberti* NE
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Wilson et al. Salvadora bairdi* LC
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Wilson et al. Geophis juarezi* DD 6
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Wilson et al. Rena boettgeri* NE 5
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Wilson et al. Crotalus viridis LC 1
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Copyright: © 2013 Porras et al. Th
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Taxonomy and conservation of the co
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Fig. 3. Young adult Agkistrodon b.
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Porras et al. Fig. 8. Young Agkistr
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Porras et al. Molecular Assessment
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Porras et al. Fig. 12. Character ma
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Porras et al. Fig. 14. Distribution
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Porras et al. Agkistrodon howardglo
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pectinata (threatened), and Eretmoc
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Porras et al. Literature Cited Acev
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Porras et al. Species. Version 2012
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Taxonomy and conservation of the co
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Coloration of neonates/juveniles: s
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