Tuhuacan Valley, Puebla, Mexico Photograph by © WWF-Canon/Anthony B. RATH   Southern North America: Southern Mexico Deserts and Xeric Shrublands   3,800 square miles (9,900 square kilometers) -- about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined Critical/Endangered

· Desert Blooms, Hummingbirds, and Bats
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Desert Blooms, Hummingbirds, and Bats

The Tehuacán Valley Matorral is an ecological island of extraordinary diversity. It is rich in species of plants restricted to just this valley. Stretching through southeast Puebla and northwestern Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, this is a desert/xeric scrub basin in a landscape of pine-oak, dry, and moist forests. Flowering cacti and flashy hummingbirds splash color across the landscape. There is a remarkable variety of bats here, which may be due to the nearby moist and cloud forests of Veracruz and Oaxaca, and the Balsa tropical dry forests.

Special Features

The semi-dry, hot climate, with summer rains and slight temperature variation, supports over 2,700 plant species, of which 30 percent are endemic. Centers of diversity for the genera Hechtia and Salvia are in the Tehuacán Valley, and four genera of seed plants are known to be endemic: Gypsacanthus, Oaxacania, Pringleochloa, and Solisia. At least 50 species of sunflowers are endemic, and 55 percent of all the species of columnar cacti in Mexico grow in this valley, 30 percent of which are endemic. There are more species of Agave here than any other arid ecosystem in Mexico.

	Most bats use echolocation to navigate and to find insect prey. Some catch insects in the folds of their wings or trap them in the membrane between their tail and legs, and then somersault in mid-air to flip their meal into their mouth.

Wild Side

A visitor to this ecoregion will be treated to a great variety of bird life. Lucifer hummingbirds dart among flowers seeking nectar and insects. Songs of the bridled sparrow and ocellated thrasher fill the air. Over 90 bird species have been recorded here, many of them spreading the seeds of columnar cacti and other plants. Dozens of species of bats, such as the evening bat, northern yellow bat, and the wrinkle-faced bat, fill the night skies. About a third of these bat species are endangered, vulnerable, or rare.

Cause for Concern

Agricultural and urban expansion cause habitats to be lost and fragmented. Grazing is widespread and intense, heavily impacting fragile desert vegetation and riparian habitats. Illegal extraction and trade of exotic plant species have led many cacti to be given endangered status.

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