Abstract
Sonora has a rich natural diversity, including reptiles and amphibians. Sonora’s location on the United States-Mexico border creates some unique conservation challenges for its wildlife. We compiled a list of the amphibian and reptile species currently known for Sonora, summarized the conservation status of these species, and compared our list of species with known species lists for adjacent states. The herpetofauna of Sonora comprises 200 species of amphibians and reptiles (38 amphibians and 162 reptiles). Overall, Sonora shares the most species with Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Arizona. Approximately 11% of the amphibian and reptile species are IUCN listed, but 35.5% are placed in a protected category by SEMARNAT, and 32.6% are categorized as high risk by the Environmental Vulnerability Score.
Highlights
Sonora is a state that, due to its geographic location near the U.S states of Arizona and California and the extraordinary natural diversity those states host, has attracted the attention of specialists and amateurs in the study of its flora and fauna
We use Rana because Yuan et al (2016) recently returned all Lithobates to Rana, Rana based on a phylogenetic analysis of six nuclear and three mitochondrial loci sampled from most species of Rana, the lack of any diagnostic morphological characters for the genera recognized by Frost et al (2006), and the clear monophyly of a larger group that include these genera
Twelve of the 193 native species are only found in islands in Sonora, those are: Isla San Esteban Spiny-tailed Iguana (Ctenosaura conspicuosa), Isla San Pedro Nolasco Spiny-tailed Iguana (C. nolascensis), Piebald Chuckwalla (Sauromalus varius), Isla San Pedro Nolasco Lizard (Uta nolascensis), Isla San Pedro Mártir Side-blotched Lizard (U. palmeri), Peninsular Leaf-toed Gecko (Phyllodactylus nocticolus), San Pedro Nolasco Gecko (P. nolascoensis), San Pedro Nolasco Whiptail (Aspidoscelis bacatus), San Esteban Whiptail (A. estebanensis), San Pedro Mártir Whiptail (A. martyris), Isla San Esteban Whipsnake (Masticophis slevini), and Isla San Esteban Black-tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus estebanensis)
Summary
Sonora is a state that, due to its geographic location near the U.S states of Arizona and California and the extraordinary natural diversity those states host, has attracted the attention of specialists and amateurs in the study of its flora and fauna. Other conservation concerns include non-native species (Bogan et al 2014, Drake et al 2017), habitat fragmentation that reduces demographic and genetic connectivity (e.g., across the international border due to construction of walls and other infrastructure on the U.S side; Peters et al 2018), and climate change resulting in changes in temperature and precipitation (Stahlschmidt et al 2011, Flesch et al 2017, Griffis-Kyle et al 2018). Another challenge to Sonora’s environment is related to water usage. We report the list of species currently known for the state of Sonora, focusing on the conservation status reported for each species, analyzing it by taxonomic groups and ecoregions, and comparing our list of species with known lists for adjacent states
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