Tamaulipas

The upper eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental in Tamaulipas, above the desert outposts of Miquihuana, Bustamante, and Jaumave are characterized by pine-oak woodland with a somewhat better developed understory than the mid-elevation forests of the western-facing slopes. At the location depicted here, at an elevation of 5680 ft (1731 m), pines, oaks, agaves, and palmettos grow on rocky, limestone hillsides. Tricolor morph leonis occur here (not far from the type locality of Lampropeltis “thayeri”), along with Red Black-headed Snakes (Tantilla rubra), Ruthven’s Whipsnake (Masticophis schotti ruthveni), Tampico Threadsnakes (Rena myopicus), Dice’s Short-nosed Skink (Plestiodon dicei; = P. brevirostris dicei), Horsetail Falls Ground Skinks (Scincella caudaequinae; = S. silvicola caudaequinae), Graphic Spiny Lizards (Sceloporus grammicus), Blue-bellied Lizard (S. parvus), Barking Frogs (Craugastor augusti), Big-eared Chirping Frogs (Syrrophus cf. verrucipes). August 2008.