The Sierra San Luis range is a mountain range in northwest Chihuahua, northeast

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

at the northern region of the

Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American C ...

cordillera. The region contains

sky island Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has s ...

mountain ranges, called the

Madrean Sky Islands The Madrean Sky Islands are enclaves of Madrean pine–oak woodlands, found at higher elevations in a complex of small mountain ranges in southern and southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico. The sky islands are su ...

, some separated from the Sierra Madre Occidental proper, and occurring in the northeastern

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert () is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It ...

, and extreme west-northwestern Chihuahuan Desert. Many of the ranges occur in southeast

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. Most of Sierra San Luis is privately owned land. The mountain range and the range to the north, the Peloncillo Mountains of Hidalgo County, New Mexico, can be viewed from the west at the Leslie Canyon National Wildlife Refuge and the

San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge The San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge is located on the U.S.-Mexico border in Cochise County, Arizona. Situated at elevation in the bottom of a wide valley, the refuge encompasses a portion of the headwaters of the Yaqui River, which dr ...

. The Rio Bavispe borders the southeast of Sierra San Luis and flows northwest around the Sierra del Tigre range.

Fauna and flora

Sky island Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has s ...

s often lead to

geographic isolation Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from ...

; (the

tepui A tepui , or tepuy (), is a member of a family of table-top mountains or mesas found in northern South America, especially in Venezuela, western Guyana, and northern Brazil. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the ...

s of north-northeastern

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

). The Madrean Sky Islands are being studied for mammal movements, the cats especially,

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of the four extant species within the medium-sized wild cat genus '' Lynx''. Native to North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the c ...

mountain lion The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

s, etc. An example study is for

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

s, the Animas ridge-nosed rattlesnake, '' Crotalus willardi obscurus''. It is being studied in 3 sky island ranges:

Animas Mountains The Animas Mountains are a small mountain range in Hidalgo County, within the " Boot-Heel" region of far southwestern New Mexico, in the United States. Location They extend north–south for about 30 miles (50 km) along the Continental Div ...

, the Peloncillos, and Sierra San Luis. North American beavers once flourished in the area, but their numbers have dwindled in the past few years and have become more rare in the area.

References

"Apachian/Madrean Region", (Conservation)Leslie Canyon Refuge
Fauna and flora:
''Crotalus willardi obscurus'', "Animas ridge-nosed rattlesnake"
Rio Bavispe Reserve & Sierra del Tigre
Rio Bavispe, SW border of Sierra San Luis

External links

Sierra El Tigre-(click on Locator Map for Sierra San Luis)
(Article and Locator Map, regional mountain ranges) Landforms of the Sierra Madre Occidental Madrean Sky Islands mountain ranges Mountain ranges of Sonora Landforms of Chihuahua (state) San Luis, Sierra Sierra Madre Occidental {{Sonora-geo-stub

Fauna and flora

See also

References

External links