52 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA GO, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



PROCVON LOTOR MICXICAN US Baird 

 Mexican H A(('<)f)\ 



Procyon lotor, variete inexicaiiie I. Ceodroy-Saint Hilaire, Voy. sur la Venus, 

 Zoologie, p. 125, pi. VI, 1855. From Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico. 



Procyon hernandezn var. mexicann Baird, Matninal. North Amer., p. 215, 1857. 



Procyon lotor viexicanus Mearns, Biol. Soc. Washington Proc. 27: 65, Mar. 20, 

 1914. 



Type locality. — Espia, northwestern Chilniahua, Mexico. 



Type. — No. 2018, probably female, adult, skull only (ori<2;inally ac- 

 companied by skin which cannot now be found), United States 

 National Museum; collected by C. B. R. Kennerly, April 1855. 



Distribution. — New Mexico, except northeastern and northwestern 

 parts, southeastern Arizona, western Texas, and south through 

 Chihuahua, eastern Sonora, Sinaloa and Durango to northern Nayarit, 

 Mexico. Lowei" Sonoran to Transition Zone. 



General characters. — One of the palest subspecies of the group; skull 

 with broad frontal area highly arched behind plane of well-developed 

 postorbital processes. Color and general size about as in P. I. paUidus 

 of the Colorado River Valley, but skull usually broader, especially 

 between orbits, and differing in other slight details. Decidedly paler 

 than P. I. fuxcipes of Texas, or P. I. hirtus of Minnesota, and combina- 

 tion of cranial characters quite different. Similar in general to 

 P. I. hernandezii of the Valley of Mexico but paler, the upper parts 

 less extensively overlaid with black; skull more highly arched and 

 presenting other distinctive featin-es. 



Color. — Upper parts in general coarsely grizzled iron grayish and 

 under parts light buffy about as in P. I. paUi(lu.s; black mask broad 

 and uninterrupted across face; rusty nuchal patch usually absent, 

 but faintly indicated in occasional specimens. 



Cranial characters. — Skull most closely resembling that of P. I. 

 pallidus, but brain case, frontal area and palatal shelf usually broader; 

 frontals rather high behind plane of postorbital processes as in pallidus; 

 tooth rows usually shorter. Compared with those of P. I. fuscipes 

 and P. I. hirtus the frontal region is similarly high behind plane of 

 postorbital processes, but less elevated anteriorly, the frontal outline 

 descending in a more nearly straight line with nasals; brain case less 

 depressed near frontoparietal suture; interorbital and postorbital 

 areas usually broader; postorbital processes of frontals longer, the 

 upper margin of orbit more deeply concave. Contrasted with that 

 of P. I. hernandezii the skull is of similar size, but less flattened, the 

 frontal region more elevated behind plane of postorbital processes; 



