Tantilla bocourti

Cruz-Elizalde, Raciel, Ramírez-Bautista, Aurelio, Pineda-López, Rubén, Mata-Silva, Vicente, DeSantis, Dominic L., García-Padilla, Elí, Johnson, Jerry D., Rocha, Arturo, Fucsko, Lydia Allison & Wilson, Larry David, 2022, The herpetofauna of Querétaro, Mexico: composition, distribution, and conservation status, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 308) 16 (1), pp. 148-192 : 165-167

Tantilla bocourti *

Leptodeira septentrionalis 8

Thamnophis melanogaster *

Kinosternon hirtipes 3

Kinosternon scorpioides 6

Three of these eight species (37.5%) are country endemics and the remaining five are non-endemics. Three of these five species also range to the north, including the United States, one species ranges through Central America and into South America, and one species occurs from the United States to South America.

In summary, of the 77 single-region species found in Querétaro, 34 (44.2%) are country endemics, 41 (53.2%) are non-endemics, and two are non-natives (2.6%). Of the three physiographic regions in the state, the SMO is of greatest conservation significance, inasmuch as it encompasses the largest overall number of species (102), the largest number of single-region species (54), and the largest number of country endemics (25).

A Coefficient of Biogeographic Resemblance (CBR) matrix was assembled for examining the herpetofaunal similarity relationships of the three physiographic regions in Querétaro ( Table 6). The SMO contains the most species richness (102 species) and the TVB the least (43 species). The mean species richness value for all three regions is 69.7. The number of shared species between each of the regional pairs ranges from 31 between the TVB and SMO regions to 45 between the Central Plateau and the SMO. The mean value of shared species among all three regions is 36.0.

The CBR values in Table 6 range from 0.43 to 0.59. The lowest value is that between the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Transmexican Volcanic Belt. These two regions lie at opposite extremes in the state ( Fig. 1 ). The highest value is that between the Transmexican Volcanic Belt and the Central Plateau, which are contiguous regions located in the south-central part of the state. The overall CBR values among the three physiographic regions are as follows, arranged from the highest to the lowest value (with species numbers in parentheses):

Transmexican Volcanic Belt (43) – 0.59 – Central Plateau (65) Sierra Madre Oriental (102) – 0.54 – Central Plateau (65)

Based on the data in Table 6, a UPGMA dendrogram ( Fig. 10 ) was developed to illustrate the herpetofaunal resemblance patterns among the three physiographic regions of Querétaro ( Fig. 1 ). The diagram demonstrates that two regions in Querétaro, the CP and the TVB, share the higher herpetofaunal resemblance (0.60 level). Both of these regions are largely montane and broadly contact one another in the southern portion of the state. These two regions are more distinguished (0.43 level) from the Sierra Madre Oriental (SMO) .

As indicated in the Introduction, we consider it useful to compare the herpetofaunal representation of the two physiographic regions in Querétaro with those of the same two regions represented in Puebla ( Woolrich-Piña et al. 2017) and Hidalgo (Ramírez-Bautista et al. 2020). We placed the comparative data in Table 7. Most of the species in the two physiographic regions we examined are either Mexican endemic or non-endemic species, while few state endemics and non-native species occur in either region. As expected, the number of species in the two regions examined increases along with the size of the herpetofauna in each of the three states, i.e., from Querétaro (129 species) to Hidalgo (202 species) to Puebla (267 species). In each of the three states the number of country endemics is greater than the number of non-endemics. The proportions of country endemics

Sierra Madre Oriental Transmexican Volcanic Belt

Country State Non- Non- Regional Country State

Non-endemics Non-natives Regional total endemics endemics endemics natives total endemics endemics

Querétaro 57 — 44

Hidalgo 87 3 74

1

1 102

165 23

59 —

4 20

20 —

2 43

85

Puebla 102 2 79 2 185 77 2 46 — 125 compared to the regional totals for the Sierra Madre Oriental in each of the three states are similar (55.9%, 52.7%, and 55.1% for Querétaro, Hidalgo, and Puebla, respectively). Likewise, each of the proportions for the Transmexican Volcanic Belt are reasonably similar to one another (53.5%, 69.4%, and 61.6%, respectively). The proportions of the non-endemics compared to the regional totals for the Sierra Madre Oriental in the same three states also are similar to one another (43.4%, 44.8%, and 42.7%, respectively), whereas those for the Transmexican Volcanic Belt are less consistent (46.5%, 23.5%, and 36.8%, respectively).

Distribution Status Categorizations

In discussing the distribution status of the members of the Querétaro herpetofauna, we used the system developed by Alvarado-Díaz et al. (2013) which was used in all the other entries of the Mexican Conservation Series (see above). The categories in this system are non-endemic, country endemic, state endemic (only Sceloporus exsul ), and non-native. The categorizations for each species are listed in Table 8 and these data are summarized in Table 9.

The numbers of species in each of the three applicable categories, in decreasing order, are: country endemics, 67 (51.5%); non-endemics, 60 (46.2%); and non-natives, 3 (2.3%). As with the states of Michoacán ( Alvarado-Díaz et al. 2013), Nayarit ( Woolrich-Piña et al. 2016), Jalisco ( Cruz-Sáenz et al. 2017), Puebla ( Woolrich-Piña et al. 2017), and Hidalgo (Ramírez-Bautista et al. 2020), the largest number of herpetofaunal species in Querétaro is in the country endemic category. In other states, the largest number falls within the non-endemic category, i.e., Oaxaca ( Mata-Silva et al. 2015), Tamaulipas ( Terán-Juárez et al. 2016), Nuevo León (Nevárez-de los Reyes et al. 2016), and Chiapas ( Johnson et al. 2015a).

Only one endemic species occurs in Querétaro ( Sceloporus exsul ), and in the 10 previous individualstate entries in the Mexican Conservation Series the number of state endemics was found to be variable, ranging from one in Nayarit and Nuevo León ( Woolrich-Piña et al. 2016; Nevárez-de los Reyes 2016) to 93 in Oaxaca ( Mata-Silva et al. 2015).

Two non-native species are found in Querétaro, Hemidactylus frenatus and Virgotyphlops braminus . These two taxa are the most widespread of the non-native species recorded in the 12 entries in the Mexican Conservation Series (Ramírez-Bautista et al. 2020), and as of this contribution, they now have been recorded in 11 and 12 states or tri-state regions, respectively.

Wilson et al. (2017) developed a system for categorizing the distribution of the herpetofauna of Mesoamerica, and applying those categories to this study, the data are summarized in Table 10. Previously, we noted that 67 species in Querétaro are endemic to Mexico, and thus 60 native species are not. These 60 species are allocated to five of the categories established by Wilson et al. (2017): MXUS, MXCA, MXSA, USCA, and USSA. As expected, the largest number of species falls into the MXUS category (26, 43.3%), which is followed by MXCA (17, 28.3%), MXSA (9, 15.0%), USCA (5, 8.3%), and finally USSA (3, 5.0%).

Figures

Fig. 1. Physiographic regions in the state of Querétaro, Mexico, and location of the state of Querétaro in Mexico. The map is based on INEGI (2000).

Fig. 10. UPGMA-generated dendrogram illustrating the simi- larity relationships of species richness among the herpetofaunal components in the three physiographic regions of Querétaro (based on the data in Table 7; Sokal and Michener 1958). Simi- larity values were calculated using Duellman’s (1990) Coef- ficient of Biogeographic Resemblance (CBR).