It prefers pine-oak forests, semi-arid scrub and thickets along watercourses.
The upper basin was formerly covered by tropical dry forest, thorn forest, and xeric shrublands.
To the east, the xeric Tehuacan Valley matorral occupies the Tehuacan valley to the northwest, the Jalisco dry forests occupy the upper basin of the Santo Domingo River, which lies in the rain shadow of the Sierra, and the Southern Pacific dry forests lie to the south along the Pacific coast, extending into the upper basin of the Tehuantepec River and the Valley of Oaxaca.