Tropidurus hispidus (Spix, 1825)

Figs 12.2 and 20

Type locality.

Bahia, restricted by Vanzolini (1981) to Salvador, state of Bahia, Brazil.

Distribution.

In the Caatinga it is registered in the states of Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Minas Gerais, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, and Sergipe. It is widespread in the Caatinga and with annual mean temperature 20 to 28°C along all ecoregions (Table 1; Appendix S3). Distributed in low to high elevation areas (5-1,450 m a.s.l.), with annual mean temperature 18 to 28°C, and average annual rainfall between 374 and 1,580 mm.

Ecological notes.

Terrestrial and diurnal. It inhabits usually open-areas, and shows great spatial niche plasticity using a wide variety of substrates, being found on rocky surfaces, forest edges, trunks of trees, sandy soils, fences and walls of human constructions, among others (Vitt 1983; Rocha and Bergallo 1990; Vitt et al. 1997c; Van Sluys et al. 2004; Rodrigues 1987; Carvalho et al. 2005). Diet based mainly on arthropods, being Orthoptera, Formicidae and also plant material the most representative items (Vitt 1995; Van Sluys et al. 2004; Pelegrin et al. 2017), but also with a record of cannibalism (Sales et al. 2011) and other vertebrates (Guedes et al. 2017). Oviparous, the female usually lays 6-13 eggs at a time (Ribeiro et al. 2008 a, 2008b; Ribeiro and Freire 2011).