Twelve km. E of Apatzingán; El Sabino (4).
One specimen of this rare species was found beneath a rock in the open scrub forest 12 kilometers east of Apatzingán on July 3, 1955. Another skink, presumably of this species, was seen at Capirio. The specimen from east of Apatzingán is a male having a snout-vent length of 97 mm. and an incomplete tail. In most respects it compares favorably with accounts of the species given by Taylor (1936b:55 and 1936c:102). The frontal is divided by a transverse suture; the enlarged dorsal scales are arranged in 11 pairs anteriorly, followed by 48 unpaired enlarged scales. The head and middorsal area are brown; there is a pale tan stripe on the edges of the vertebral and paravertebral rows, bordered by a dark brown stripe on the paravertebral row, which, in turn, is bordered by a pale tan stripe on the lateral edge of the paravertebral scale row and the median edge of the adjacent scale row. The stripes extend from the neck to the base of the tail. The flanks are mottled with brown and cream-color; the labials are cream-color barred by brown; the venter is a pale cream-color.
Dugès (1891:485) described Eumeces altamirani from "las regiones cálidas del Estado de Michoacán" and subsequently (1896:480) gave Apatzingán as a locality for the species. Presumably he had only one specimen. In 1935 Hobart M. Smith collected the species at El Sabino on the lower slopes of the Cordillera Volcánica bordering the Tepalcatepec Valley. All of the known specimens are from this valley and the adjacent slopes, an area to which the species apparently is endemic.
Eumeces colimensis Taylor
Eumeces colimensis Taylor, Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., zool. ser., 20:77, May 15, 1935.—Colima, Colima, México.
Coalcomán; Salitre de Estopila.
The species was reported by Peters (1954:16); no additional material has been discovered. The species is known only from foothills and low mountains at elevations between 130 and 950 meters in Michoacán and Colima.
Eumeces copei Taylor
Eumeces copei Taylor, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 46:133, June 5, 1933.—10 miles southeast of Asunción, México, México. Cerro Tancítaro (3); Zacapu.
This member of the Eumeces brevirostris-group has been found only in pine or pine-fir forests at elevations from 1800 to 2700 meters. It probably ranges throughout the high mountains of the state north of the Tepalcatepec Valley; its apparent absence in other parts of the Cordillera Volcánica, other than on Cerro Tancítaro, is surprising. The species has been taken near Asunción in the state of México and at Lagunas de Zempoala in Morelos.