Sumidero Canyon National Park, Mexico Photograph by Javier de la Maza Elvira/SEMARNAP   Neotropical Tropical and Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests   5,400 square miles (14,000 square kilometers) -- about the size of Connecticut Critical/Endangered

· A Vast Dry Forest
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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A Vast Dry Forest

The Chiapas Depression is a dry forest valley in southern Mexico and western Guatemala, cut by the Alto Grijalva River system and surrounded by mountainous terrain and pine-oak forests. Great variations in altitude create amazingly diverse habitats for nearly 1,000 different dry adapted plant species. Many of the plants and animals that live here can be found nowhere else on Earth. And because this region lies on a convergence zone for species from the Caribbean side and Pacific side of the continental divide, it contains an unusual mix of species that come from both of these areas.

Special Features

This ecoregion is flanked on the east by very steep slopes running down from the Chiapas plateau and on the west by the highly eroded slopes of the Sierra Madre of Chiapas. The climate is generally warm and dry with mild humidity compared to other forests of Mexico. In the areas of greatest humidity at middle elevations, the forest is taller and less seasonal. And even though the soils of these forests are rocky and shallow, they support a diversity of plant species.

	The nocturnal Mexican porcupine sports yellowish spines and a pale naked head, and is endangered due to over-hunting and all too frequent traffic collisions. These large rodents have prehensile tails and spend much of their day resting in the treetops.

Wild Side

In the scrubby woodlands and thorny thickets of this ecoregion, you might hear the raspy hooting of the lesser ground cuckoo or the long, wailing cries of the lesser roadrunner.Blue-throated motmots nest in rare plumajillo trees, as caterpillars of the Dina yellow butterfly munch leaves in the canopy. Aguajpo and zapotillo trees grow in the sparse and arid countryside. In taller areas of forest along the mountain slopes, cacho de toro trees are overgrown with epiphytes such as Tillandsia bromeliads. Other trees with names like yoa and copal, are home to a variety of nesting birds. A white-tailed deer fawn and her mother rest in the shade of a large thorny ceiba. Rocky areas are also home to reptiles such as the Mexican west-coast rattlesnake and the horned lizard. Two endemic shrews make their homes here as well--the Verpaz shrew and Goldman's small-eared shrew.

Cause for Concern

Few portions of intact original vegetation still remain in the Chiapas Depression Dry Forests. Most of the original forest has been eliminated and replaced by pasture or agriculture. The major threats to the region are from cattle grazing and clearing for agricultural purposes and human settlement. Only three percent of the remaining natural habitat of this region has any degree of protection.

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