Amphibians and Reptiles

Adapted from: Mead, James I., and C. J. Bell. 1994. Late Pleistocene and Holocene herpetofaunas of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Pp. 255-275 In K. T. Harper, L. L. S. Clair, K. H. Thorne, and W. M. Hess, editors. Natural History of the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin. University of Colorado Press, Boulder, CO.

Fossil remains of amphibians and reptiles from the late Pleistocene or the early Holocene have been identified from less than twenty sites on the Colorado Plateau. Represented in this fossil record are 61 percent of the modern herpetofauna. Missing species, especially salamanders and frogs, are likely absent because fossil localities in critical habitat types have not been examined in detail.  Raptor pellet deposits from the late Pleistocene have not been systematically studied anywhere on the Plateau.

The most reliable record of change in the distribution of herpetofauna over time is contained within fossil materials recovered from packrat midden sequences collected in the Grand Canyon, especially those from Vulture Cave. A single excavation of a rare, small carnivore bone accumulation has produced an abundance of reptile remains from the late Holocene of the Grand Canyon. A dearth of data exists for lacustrine environments on the Colorado Plateau, where salamanders and various other aquatic species are likely to be recovered.

Herpetofaunas are useful for paleoenvironmental reconstructions, especially when incorporated with the mammalian data. The Grand Canyon herpetofaunal record supports that of other plant and animal species which reveal that the change from a "typical" glacial biotic community to a "typical" postglacial community apparently took place over a number of thousands of years, and that each species reacted individually to the climatic changes of the Wisconsin late glacial; there was not a zonal or community-wide change.

Betancourt, J. L., T. R. V. Devender, and P. S. Martin, editors. 1990. Packrat middens: The last 40,000 years of biotic change. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.

Durham, F. E. 1956. Amphibians and reptiles of the North Rim, Grand Canyon, Arizona. Herpetologica 12: 220-224.

Hammerson, G. A. 1986. Amphibians and reptiles in Colorado. Colorado Division of Wildlife, Denver, CO.

Holman, J. A. 1995. Pleistocene amphibians and reptiles in North America. Oxford University Press, New York.

Mead, J. I., and A. M. I. Phillips. 1981. The late Pleistocene and Holocene fauna of Vulture Cave, Grand Canyon, Arizona. Southwestern Naturalist 26: 257-288.

Mead, J. I., and T. R. Van Devender. 1981. Late Holocene diet of Bassariscus astutus in the Grand Canyon. Journal of Mammalogy 62: 439-442.

Mead, J. I., and C. J. Bell. 1994. Late Pleistocene and Holocene herpetofaunas of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Pp. 255-275 In K. T. Harper, L. L. S. Clair, K. H. Thorne, and W. M. Hess, editors. Natural history of the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.