I.

INTRODUCTION

The Mexican Plateau, in its magnificent dimensions and material wealth, stood
among the first and perhaps most alluring discoveries of European explorers. Bur-
ied deeper in the verbal histories of a now vanquished people, the American
Indians, must be the primordial human awareness of the inverted complex triangle
that dominates the Mexican topography, climate and biota. It always has been
viewed by man as a source of wealth and a center of authority. The plateau is the
pillar upon which all Mexican conquerors have erected their capitols, tilled their
crops and mined for their treasure, and from which they dispersed the forces of
their authority. Ironically, the same size and diversity that give the plateau its
value, also make it an immense barrier. Its broad desert and three to five thousand
meter high crests constitute severe obstacles in the path of North American man.
What has just been said of mankind in general, can be applied to the biologist in
particular. He too has termed the goliath southern plateau as the crucible of the
arid biotas of the continent (i.e., 'Madro-Tertiary'). The biologist found the plateau
to be a region of tremendous richness and diversity. But he also has been
inhibited both physically and intellectually by its high mountain and vast desert
barriers. Even as biological awareness of the importance of the plateau grows, that
awareness remains confined to fragmentary and circumstantial evidence until the
barriers are cfC'ssed and the actual contents of the region defined as to their nature
and distributions.
This dissertation is directed at one of the most important and least understood
components of the plateau, its Chihuahuan Desert. The investigation has assumed
four specific tasks: (1) to define the Chihuahuan Desert in biologically and physio-
graphically realistic terms; (2) to translate that definition into an explicit geogra-
phical base map and quantitatively test the predictive value of that map against a
specific set of biological systems, the amphibians and reptiles; (3) to assess the
relative differentiation and affinities of the Chihuahuan herpetofauna; and (4) to
reconstruct this history of the Chihuahuan Desert and its herpetofauna through
geologic time to its evolution to a contemporary state of being.
The investigation then is a biological profile of the Chihuahuan Desert, a defin-
ing profile in terms of content, characteristics, and spatial limits, but also defining
as an ongoing process through time.
The analytical effort required for this undertaking may also be broken down
into four explicit endeavors: (1) the definition of components and conditions of
the desert, climate, physiography, and vegetation, and their spatial distributions;
(2) the determination of the herpetofauna of the Chihuahuan Desert and their
total spatial distributions; (3) quantification and evaluation of the degrees of cor-
relation between information from sources (1) and (2) above; and (4) the deter-
mination of the most probable historical events which account for the patterns and
correlations observable in the present.
Past studies are few in number both generally and for the herpetofauna in
particular (the reader is reminded that the largest reptile in temperate western
North America, the Chihuahuan Bolson Tortoise - Gopherus flavomarginatus -
was described in 1959). The desert has been analyzed and defined ecologically, at

D. J. Morafka, A Biogeographical Analysis of the Chihuahuan Desert through its Herpetofauna

© Dr. W. Junk bv, Publishers, The Hague 1977
least in English literature, largely from its unstable and atypical grassland ecotones
lying within United States boundaries. The resulting distortion in the literature is
much like an analysis of the contents of an egg extrapolated from a sample of its
shell. In addition, even investigators who have gone below the United States border
have usually confined themselves to the arbitrary borders of local Mexican political
states. The resulting accounts, though often well documented and detailed, are
accurate only locally and without perspective as to the variation or real limits of
the systems they investigate. Finally, much exclusive terminology has set up false
alternatives for the biologist describing or defining desert conditions. In particular
the concepts of desert (sclerophyll) and grassland have been used as almost anti-
thetical. It is clear now that many grasslands are both physiologically and geogra-
phically qualified as true and typical participants in a climatic desert biota. Finally,
many deserts have been defined in totally subjective and non biological terms,
forcing too many researchers to employ artificial and inadequate geographical
units.
A synthetic evaluation, unbiased geographically or rhetorically has been attemp-
ted in this investigation. It is sincere, conscientious, and imperfect. I am confident
that it will receive both the concern and the criticism that will nourish and mature
the beginnings founded here.

David Morafka, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Biology
California State College
Dominguez Hills