‘Impromptu’ natural history presentations

We will see many species in our exploration of Jalisco. Of course we will try to build up a broad understanding of the ecology of this region and the natural history of each species that e encounter but to help facilitate this we have chosen a select number of focal species or groups, each of which we will assign to a student. Your job is to research these in advance and prepare a short (not truly impromptu but that’s what we’ll call it) presentation when we encounter these species – hopefully. You should include a conservation of their taxonomy (species, genus, family etc.) and evolutionary affinities and history, the mode or reproduction, their annual cycles, morphology and behavior. Please prepare a one-page, point-form handout summarizing this information, and print off 25 copies. By the end of the course you will have a compendium of interesting case studies of species of western Mexico.