List of reptiles of El Salvador
The reptiles that inhabit El Salvador include snakes, lizards, crocodilians and turtles.
El Salvador has a herpetofauna that includes 141 species of reptiles,[1] which are grouped into 3 orders and 26 families.
Turtles: Cheloniidae · Dermochelyidae · Emydidae · Geoemydidae · Kinosternidae · Staurotypidae Crocodilians: Crocodylidae · Alligatoridae Lizards: Anguidae · Corytophanidae · Dactyloidae · Gekkonidae · Iguanidae · Phrynosomatidae · Scincidae · Teiidae · Gymnophthalmidae · Xantusiidae Snakes: Leptotyphlopidae · Typhlopidae · Boidae · Loxocemidae · Colubridae · Dipsadidae · Natricidae · Elapidae · Viperidae Notes References Order: Testudines · Family: Cheloniidae Sea turtles (Cheloniidae) are a family of large turtles found in all tropical seas and some subtropical and temperate seas.
Unlike most sea turtles, leatherbacks are often found in the colder waters of temperate zones.
They live most of the time in ponds, reservoirs and rivers, coming to land when they have to find suitable places to lay their eggs.
They are mostly small turtles that inhabit bodies of water with soft, muddy bottoms with an abundance of vegetation.
All members of the family are carnivorous and feed on crustaceans, aquatic insects, mollusks, annelids, amphibians, small fish and sometimes carrion.
It includes 14 species of large semi-aquatic reptiles that inhabit tropical areas of the world.
Crocodiles tend to congregate in freshwater habitats, such as rivers, lakes, wetlands, and sometimes brackish water.
Crocodiles are ambush hunters, waiting for fish or land animals to approach, to pounce on the prey.
They feed mainly on vertebrates such as fish, reptiles and mammals, and sometimes invertebrates such as mollusks and crustaceans, depending on the species.
The anguid family is divided into three subfamilies, eight genera and contains 94 species, of which 5 occur in El Salvador.
They are nocturnal, with large eyes and equipped with vertical lobed pupils that allow an extraordinary margin of variation in their opening.
Many species have sticky pads on the soles of their feet and can climb smooth vertical surfaces and even navigate ceilings.
Order: Squamata · Family: Iguanidae The iguanids (Iguanidae) are a family of lizards whose distribution extends from the southern United States, Central America to Paraguay, and from the Caribbean islands to the Galapagos Islands and Fiji.
They often have a dewlap that helps regulate body temperature, and dorsal spines that are more pronounced in males than in females.
Its range includes southern Canada, the United States, Mexico and Central America.
Order: Squamata · Family: Teiidae The teiids (Teiidae) are a family of lizards with elongated bodies, well-developed limbs, provided with granular dorsal scales, and large, rectangular ventral plates; the head has large plates.
They are terrestrial and diurnal, and mainly insectivorous, although some species include a small amount of plant matter in their diet.
They live in a wide variety of habitats – from desert to mountains to rainforest – throughout Central and South America.
It has a triangular head, a fairly robust cylindrical body, a little flattened dorsoventrally in the posterior region; short and conical tail.
The eyes are small; the scales are wide and smooth, all similar except for a slightly elongated ventral row.
Colubrids form the largest family of snakes with a total of 1938 species, grouped into 304 genera.
Outwardly, terrestrial elapids are similar to colubrids; Almost all have long, thin bodies, heads covered with large scales, and eyes with round pupils.
Sea snakes, which are also elapids, have adapted to marine life in different ways and to varying degrees.
Their characteristics may include laterally flattened bodies, rudder tails for swimming, and the ability to excrete salt.
They have a loreal pit, a hole on each side of the head between the eye and the nostril; It is a thermoreceptor organ that is very sensitive to temperature variations and is used to detect warm-blooded prey.
