A holiday quiz- can anyone ID this species? Found in the twilight zone of a cave in a small stream (hint) entering the main cave stream. Isla Bastimentos, Bocas del Toro Province, Panama. Apologies for the picture, one needs a good reason before hand to bring a nice camera into wet and muddy caves.
Has this species been reported from the BDT Archipelago?
Graham is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His research focuses on Caribbean herpetology- specifically anoles and boas.
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Julián Velasco
It seems to Anolis macrolepis, a semiaquatic anole from Colombia.
cbpetersen
Probably Anolis lionotus.
Wes Chun
I’ll guess Norops (Anolis) oxylophus, a semiaquatic anole that occurs on the Atlantic versant of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and extreme northwestern Panama (Savage, 2002).
grahamreynolds
Wes, that is my guess as well. Can anyone else verify? Anolis lionotus is a good suggestion as well, that is also a Panamanian semi aquatic anole. I have seen both aquaticus and oxylophus in CR, and this one certainly looks like oxylophus. But, I haven’t seen lionotus yet. I’m not sure what the distribution of macrolepis is in Panama. Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool that it was in a cave.
ehutchins
Finally a mainland anole! A. lionotus is my best guess, but I wouldn’t rule out oxylophus. I have yet to see A. lionotus in the wild though… maybe on my next trip to Panama. That is a neat location.
cbpetersen
In my answer I have followed Köhler (2003, 2008) who herein consider oxylophus Cope, 1876 to be a synonym of lionotus Cope, 1861. However, it is still controversial as to whether or not the two taxa are conspecific. A brief discussion on this topic appears in Jaramillo et al. (2010).
Jaramillo, C., L. D. Wilson, R. Ibáñez, and F. Jaramillo. 2010. The
herpetofauna of Panama: distribution and conservation. In L. D.
Wilson, J. H. Townsend, and J. D. Johnson (eds.), Conservation
of Mesoamerican Amphibians and Reptiles, pp. 604–671. Eagle
Mountain Publ., Eagle Mountain, Utah.
Köhler, G. 2003. Reptiles of Central America. Herpeton, Offenbach, Germany. 367 pp.
Köhler, G. 2008. Reptiles of Central America. 2nd ed. Herpeton, Offenbach, Germany. 400 pp.
grahamreynolds
Thanks for the comment. I don’t have a copy of the Eagle Mtn book- was waiting to see if a less expensive copy turned up. So, probably consider this species to be lionotus, if oxylophus is a junior synonym?
cbpetersen
You’re welcome. In the Eagle Mtn book they have chosen to follow Willams (1984) and treat them as separate species, due to the fact that the position taken by Köhler (to treat them as a single species (lionotus)) was based on an unpublished master´s thesis by Obermeier. However, Köhler is apparently preparing a study on this matter and likely will support the position of Obermeier (Jaramill et al. 2010).