8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM VOL. 125 
Foop.—A variety of animal prey including small vertebrates. 
TemMPERATURE.—Probably a heliotherm, as several were seen basking 
(no temperature records). 
ScINCIDAE 
Mabuya mabouia 
Hasrrat.—Most common along the edges of forest and of second 
growth, it also occurs well inside the forest and out in open grassy situ- 
ations where hiding places are available. With the possible exception 
of Tupinambis, this has the widest habitat range of all the species con- 
sidered in this paper. 
This species is partly terrestrial, but also it is seen frequently on logs, 
wood piles, and even short distances up tree trunks. It is one of the few 
species regularly seen in tall grass areas, where they are seen on tree 
trunks and on posts that extend above the grass. 
ABUNDANCE.—Moderately common, least so inside the forest. 
Foop.—Insects and other invertebrates. 
TemperAture.—A heliotherm (fig. 2). Frequently seen basking. 
Discussion 
The ecological profile given in figure 1 summarizes the microdistri- 
butions of the lizards under consideration in the Belém area. No species 
ranges throughout the whole spectrum of the area though some species 
certainly are more widely distributed than are others. 
Of the habitats studied, the forest is the richest in number of species, 
but most of the species there are not abundant—at least they are not 
commonly seen. Some of the species high in the forest canopy and 
others in the leaf litter are certainly more abundant than indicated by 
the number of times that we saw them. Restricting consideration to 
areas where our observations are best, among the species that live 
on tree trunks near the ground or are conspicuously active on the 
ground, most of the species in the relatively undisturbed forest seem 
rarer than those outside it. The localities where most of the forest spe- 
cies were most common—the Parque do Museu and the Bosque Munici- 
pal—were places where the canopy was only slightly disturbed but the 
understory more so and where many things, particularly certain snakes, 
birds, and mammals that might be predators or competitors, were 
probably absent. 
In the forest habitats not only density of individuals per species, 
but also total density of individuals of all lizard species taken together 
seemed less than in some more disturbed areas. 
Second growth has a lizard fauna much like that of the forest except 
that certain species are missing and a few like Amezva are more com- 
