Common Checkered Whiptail vs. Colorado Checkered Whiptail

Both are all-female checkered whiptails of southeastern Colorado; the Colorado Checkered Whiptail is a triploid hybrid of the Common Checkered Whiptail and the Six-lined Racerunner. In Colorado they are found together only in Ninemile Valley on the Purgatoire River. A: Irregular in outline, interrupted or joined to bars in the Common Checkered Whiptail; grey, straight and unbroken (often joined to spots) in the Colorado Checkered Whiptail. B: Irregular, broken into spots or bars in the Common Checkered Whiptail; fairly straight, cut here and there by narrow black gaps in the Colorado Checkered Whiptail. Walker et al. 1997 and CPW: the two are difficult to tell apart, and old adults of both lose their stripes. In Colorado, place helps: the Colorado Checkered Whiptail lives in the Arkansas, Huerfano, Apishapa and Purgatoire valleys (Pueblo, Otero, Las Animas counties), the Common Checkered Whiptail in the canyons further southeast.

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