22 December 2011

Field Guide or other mammal books for Jalisco province, Mexico

Hello, I am just back from Vietnam after a very wet but surprisingly successful trip – over 30 species in 2 weeks including all three Doucs. I am thinking about going to the Cuixmala reserve in Central-western Mexico in January but cannot find any field guides or much information about the region. Does anyone know of any books or useful material I can look at to help me make up my mind and identify anything I see if I go!

Happy Christmas!

Jon

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7 Comments

  • 22 December 2011
    Vladimir Dinets

    AFAIK, there is no guidebook for that area, but if you get Fiona Reid’s M. of C. Am. and a North American guide, you’d have most spp. covered. The rest will have to be fished out from systematic checklists. I might have an annotated checklist for Mexico somewhere at home – will try to find it when I get there next week.

  • 22 December 2011
    Curtis Hart

    Here’s a list on wikipedia.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mammals_of_Mexico

    Good luck, I’d love to see a report from that area.

  • 23 December 2011
    Charles Hood

    Jon, there is a bird site guide (reliable as of when it was written, 1999) called Bird-Finding Guide to Mexico. It has a Colima / Jalisco chapter and hence has driving directions; it is by ace birder Steve Howell. Contact me directly if you want to see a scan of a sample page. Charles Hood, hoodcw@gmail.com.

  • 26 December 2011
    Jon Hall

    Thanks everyone. Just for the record Fiona Reid recommended this book “los mamiferos silvestres de Mexico” by Ceballos and Oliva (eds), 2005 which I’ve ordered. Extraordinary that for a country with so many endemics there isn’t a field guide in SPanish let alone English. I will probably go there for a week in mid Jan.

    • 26 December 2011
      Vladimir Dinets

      Jalisco has a few nice spots. Night driving and trapping along Hwy 80 and Hwy 200 has been productive (grayish mouse and common opossums, little yellow bats in culverts, pygmy spotted skunks, two spp. of Heteromys, pygmy mice, rice rats, a deer mouse (probably P. banderanus), hairy harvest mouse, and Jaliscan cotton rat).

      Another good place is Sierra de la Manantlan Biosphere Reserve – I saw Buller’s pocket gopher, Aztec mouse, and Goldmann’s short-eared shrew there, and another shrew that I couldn’t identify, but it was most likely Sausurre’s shrew.

      Also, the road up Nevado del Colima (rough and sometimes closed due to volcanic activity) is great. I think it’s the highest road in North America. I found Mexican long-tailed shrew there under a rock, a few Mexican fox squirrels, two spp. of woodrats, and one ground squirrel that looked like Tropical, although IUCN map doesn’t show it in Jalisco (but the text does).

      • 18 October 2013
        Peter Hubbell 6200 N Via Ranchero,Tucson,AZ.85704

        My comment is actually about playa novilleros, Nayarit and Cohune palm grows a few miles south which in winter dry season have roosting white bats–the genus: Diclidurus alba . I collected a series of 21. & in los angelas county museum, 7 deposited. 7 more in u. arizona, and final 7 in UNAM in Mexico. Thier are other bats but they are holes in trees.
        Wrens Make big round sleeping nests often 5-6 as anti preditor defence. Wearing heavy leather glove you can exract mouse oppussums

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