AN ANNOTATED CHECKLIST AND KEY TO 

 THE REPTILES OF MEXICO, EXCLUSIVE 

 OF THE SNAKES 



By HoBART M. Smith and Edward H. Taylor 



INTRODUCTION 



This volume constitutes the last of a series of checklists and keys 

 to the herpetological fauna of Mexico. The first, ''An Annotated 

 Checklist and Key to the Snakes of Mexico" (U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 

 187), was published on October 5, 1945. The second, "An Annotated 

 Checklist and Key to the Amphibia of Mexico" (U. S. Nat. Mus. 

 Bull. 194), appeared on June 17, 1948. In this, the third volume, the 

 turtles, amphisbaenians, lizards, and crocodilians are treated. The 

 preparatory work that preceded these checklists was pursued as time 

 permitted from 1932 to the present, a period of about 17 years. It 

 has involved a number of expeditions to Mexico at our own expense ^ 

 and the collecting of more than 50,000 herpetological specimens. 



Except in rare instances the materials have all passed under the 

 scrutiny of one or the other of us, and the detailed results of these 

 studies are embodied in more than a hundred short or longer reports. 

 Our own ideas have often changed with the acquisition of materials 

 not originally available. 



It was hoped that the long-awaited work on turtles by Stejneger 

 and Hartweg w^ould see the light before the appearance of the turtle 

 checklist, but since there is still no certainty of the completion of this 

 work in the immediate future it does not seem wise to delay on this 

 account. 



We have refrained from anticipating certain forms not now recog- 

 nized that are present even in our own collection; the specimens repre- 

 senting them are referred without comment to the recognized form 

 they most closely resemble. A number of such forms belong to Anolis, 

 no adequate revision of which has yet been made, although the senior 

 author is contemplating such a work. Certain other groups, especially 

 Cnemidophorus and Uta, merit reinvestigation. 



There are many other unsolved problems in Mexican herpetology; 

 much more exploration remains to be performed. Probably no single 



' From 1938 to 1941 1 was financed by the Smithsonian Institution on several expeditions, through tenure 

 of a Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholarship.— H. M. S. 



1 



