Lick Creek, Texas, USA Photograph by Jim Manhart   Southern North America: Southern United States Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests   20,300 square miles (52,600 square kilometers) -- slightly smaller than West Virginia Critical/Endangered

· Texas Treasure
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Texas Treasure

Located entirely within the state of Texas, this relatively small ecoregion is big on diversity. Forests of oak and hickory support opposums, least shrews, beavers, and many butterflies and reptiles.

Special Features

Fire and drought were historically the factors that maintained the prevailing species mix in this hot, humid ecoregion. Irrigated rice fields now dot the landscape.

	The Houston toad secretes bad-tasting chemicals to discourage predators like spiders, snakes, and owls. This highly endangered amphibian (about 2,000 remain) is more at risk from people who cut down trees and build houses or roads.

Wild Side

The East Central Texas Forests are filled with an interesting mix of scarlet, post, and blackjack oaks along with pignut and mockernut hickories. These trees provide refuge for fox and gray squirrels. Along the scenic rivers, forests of elm, pecan, and walnut are home to beavers, raccoons, and striped skunks. The endangered Houston toad forms a chorus in breeding ponds, announcing spring. And each spring, male Attwater's prairie chickens gather in leks to perform an elaborate courtship ritual, inflating their yellow air sacs and emitting a strange, booming sound across a sea of grasses.

Cause for Concern

Both ranching and farming practices have heavily altered the natural habitat in this ecoregion. Approximately three-fourths of the natural vegetation has been converted to agriculture, and further conversion is a continuing threat. There are no large portions of intact habitat remaining today and no national forests in the region, and the level of protection for existing habitat is minimal. In the few remaining patches of natural habitat, fire suppression threatens to change the natural composition of species by eliminating certain species.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.