Santa Cruz Huatico, Mexico Photograph by L.Schibli Serbo   Southern North America: Southern Mexico Tropical and Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests   Over 16,400 square miles (42,000 square kilometers) -- about twice the size of Massachusetts Critical/Endangered

· Dry Season Blooms
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Dry Season Blooms

Trees in tropical dry forests lose many of their leaves during the hot dry season, but many species are also covered in flowers, and clouds of bees and butterflies.

Special Features

Tree species of Bursera, Lysiloma, Ceiba, and Ficus are common in these forests. Most species lose their leaves in the dry season, and some have waxy bark or thorns to keep from losing the water they store in their trunks. Many species of plants, butterflies, and reptiles occur only in these dry forests. A great diversity of spiders has been recorded in the dry forests of coastal Guerrero -- at least 311 species have been identified so far.

	Some species of dry forest cicada gather together in a few trees and call at the same time creating a very loud chorus.

Wild Side

Due to the healthy populations of scorpions and spiders, the ecoregion attracts many of their predators. Several bats, such as the lesser long-nosed bat and the fishing bat, seek prey out here. The lesser long-nosed bat lives on nectar and pollen from flowers, not insects, thus pollinating the plants, particularly agaves and cacti. Many of these plants are dependent on the bat for reproduction. Birds like the red-crowned ant-tanager, elegant quail, orange-fronted parakeet, flammulated flycatcher, and citreoline trogon are typical of these forests. The green and black iguana used to be found in great abundance, but they have been heavily hunted and their habitat destroyed. Other species characteristic to these dry forests are the coati, Buller's pocket gopher, pygmy rice rat, nine-banded armadillo, and javelina peccary.

Cause for Concern

Pastures and fruit and coffee plantations have replaced much of the Southern Pacific coast dry forest vegetation. Only two protected areas have been established, however eight more are proposed. Tourists have long admired the beauty of the Pacific Coast beaches, but hotels have been built at the expense of forests as well as their inhabitants. The loss of biodiversity in this region has been enormous.

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