HERPETOLOGY OF ZUNI MOUNTAINS — GEHLBACH 



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bluish venter, and rarel}^ (4 out of 37 New Mexico specimens) lacks 

 the middorsal light stripe. In C. velox the venter is usually white, 

 although occasionally tinged with blue, and the middorsal stripe is 

 more often incomplete or absent (table 8). The condition of this 

 stripe apparently remains constant during ontogeny (pi. 3A). 



Table 7. — Comparison of range and mean of meristic characters of striped ivhiptails 

 (Genus Cnemidophorus) present in western New Mexico^ 



• Data in part from Duellman and Zwelfel (1%2). 



There is relatively little geographic variation in C. velox (table 8). 

 It is perhaps significant that populations from the immediate vicinity 

 of the San Juan Basin are somewhat more uniform in structure and 

 closer to the species mode than those to the south and west. Speci- 

 mens from Catron County, New Mexico, have the fewest dorsal 

 scales ^ and are smallest in size, closely approaching C. inornatus in 

 these characters. Specimens from Kane County, Utah, have the 

 largest number of dorsals and, including Navajo County, Ai'izona, 

 and San Juan County, Utah, femoral pores. The four samples 

 most peripheral to the San Juan Basin, those from the Zunis, Catron, 

 Apache, and Kane Counties, show the greatest separation of para- 

 vertebral light stripes and incidence of a complete middorsal stripe. 



Maslin (1959, p. 44) identified two specimens (UMMZ 76881) as 

 syntypes of C. velox although he added that they were reidentified as 

 C. stictogrammus by Richard G. Zweifel. Zweifel (in litt.) said that 

 he had no notes on these specimens; he later examined and tentatively 

 determmed them as C. sexlineatus. I concur with this identificatiou. 

 Clearly the specimens in question are not syntypes of C. velox. Even 

 their locality data, Lee's Ferry, Coconino County, Arizona, differs 

 from that given by Springer (1928, p. 103) for the four original syn- 

 types: "Three were taken at Oraibi, Arizona, and one at Pueblo 

 Bonito, New Mexico." Some mixup is indicated since C. sexlineatus 

 reaches its westernmost limits in San Miguel Count}'-, New Mexico, 

 and cannot be expected at Lee's Ferry. 



6 I agree with Zweifel (1959, p. 66) that the number of dorsal scales around 

 midbody is a more accurate count than the number from occiput to rump. This 

 may be seen in the degree of variation in the Zuni population (table 5). 



73S-287 — 65—4 



