cies occurs from Sinaloa and
central Veracruz southward at low elevations to the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec and thence along the Pacific lowlands into Central America.
Almost certainly it occurs on the coastal lowlands in Michoacan. Since
the amphibian fauna of the Tepalcatepec Valley has been better sampled
than that of the coast, I suspect that if _Gastrophryne_ occurred in the
Tepalcatepec Valley, I would have found it there.
~Lepidochelys olivacea~ (Eschscholtz)
_Chelonia olivacea_ Eschscholtz, Zool. Atlas, pt. 1, p. 2,
1829.--Manila Bay, Philippine Islands.
_Lepidochelys olivacea_, Girard, United States Exploring
Expedition..., vol. 20, Herpetology, p. 435, 1858.
According to Smith and Taylor (1950b: 15), this sea turtle is known from
the entire Pacific coast of Mexico; these authors reported the species
from Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Colima, and Sonora. Although the only
sea turtle that I observed in Michoacan is _Chelonia mydas_, others
probably do use the sheltered beaches for nesting. The scanty records of
sea turtles along the Pacific coast of Mexico indicate that _Chelonia
mydas_ and _Lepidochelys olivacea_ are the most abundant species in that
region. There are scattered records of _Dermochelys coriacea_, _Caretta
caretta_, and _Eretmochelys imbricata_ along the Pacific coast. The
occurrence of any of these along the coast of Michoacan is probable.
~Geoemyda pulcherrima pulcherrima~ (Gray)
_Emys pulcherrima_ Gray, Catalogue of the Shield Reptiles in
British Museum, vol. 1, p. 25.--Mexico. Type locality
restricted to Presidio de Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico, by
Smith and Taylor (1950b:30).
_Geoemyda pulcherrima pulcherrima_, Wettstein, Sitzb. Akad.
Wiss. Wien, 143:18, 1934.
Smith and Taylor (1950b:30) recorded this species from Sonora, Sinaloa,
Nayarit, Colima, and Guerrero; these records indicate that the species
probably is distributed along the Pacific coast of Mexico southward from
southern Sonora. It unquestionably occurs on the coast of Michoacan.
Natives of the coastal lowlands tell of another "tortuga de la tierra"
besides _Geoemyda rubida_. In the collections of the Museum of Natural
History of the University of Illinois is a specimen of _Geoemyda
pulcherrima_ from Mexcala in the Balsas Basin in northern Guerrero. On
the basis of this specimen it is highly probable that the species also
inhabits the Balsas-Tepalcatepec Basin in Michoaca
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