Anoles on Postage Stamps–Who Knew There Were So Many?

Uwe Bartelt of Germany clearly enjoys the distinction of being the world’s greatest collector of anole postage stamps. Presented below are the highlights of his collection. Who knew there were so many anole stamps? What a wondrous exhibition! Click on each stamp to get a close-up view. More info below.

Uwe says this about his collection: “The idea comes from a German website “reptiles on stamps.” There I saw my first anole stamps. I became fever 🙂 must have these beautiful things. So I asked the ebay oracle……and wow there are a lot of my stamps to buy. So I am searching worldwide. Key words are: “anole, anoles, lizards, reptilien, reptiles, birds, butterflies, frogs, plants, nature.” My stamps collection grows every week. Otherwise I find funny things like a lovely plush anole….or surprise-egg anoles.Yes, I buy this too 🙂 Also some historical anole pictures. Many thanks to Thomas Ackermann, who photographed all my stamps a whole day long :).”

What’s your favorite stamp? I’m kind of partial to the Peruvian A. punctatus from Manu National Park and the triumvirate from the British Virgin Islands.

 

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7 Comments

  1. Pat Shipman

    Lovely! I never would have guessed there were so many.

  2. Peter Mudde

    Interesting to see that on Barbados, Anoles hatch frog gecko-eggs. (In the vision of the stamp-designer at least..)

  3. J James

    Wonderful and fun.

  4. Uwe Bartelt

    my favorit is the last stamp.Child and Anole. Hope both had a good future together.

    special thanks to Melissa and Jonathan

    will be continued…..If you want

  5. Outstanding post, thanks for sharing. How many of these stamps have obvious errors (e.g., species assigned to the wrong island)?

  6. Answering Rich with a bit of background for at least two species on Cuban stamps: more than 20 years ago I gave some color slides (Kodachromes) of Cuban herps to Lourdes Rodriguez, of the Institute of Ecology and Systematics of Cuba, on a visit. Then, in 2004 I noticed near the end of her book Anfibios y Reptiles de Cuba a plate showing 6 postage stamps of reptiles printed by the Cuban government in 1994. After careful comparison, I recognized them as rendered from my photos! (you can compare the images on http://www.caribherp.org of those Anolis species on the stamps, A. baracoae and A. ophiolepis, as well as the other herps). I remembered the Anolis baracoae had its mouth open when I photographed it. I quickly purchased some on eBay even though it was 10 years after issue. Even though no one told me, it was still nice to see my images put into circulation. Thanks Lourdes. So to answer Rich, those particular IDs are good and I even have DNA from those specimens on the stamps! But there is a famous case of New Zealand placing a green iguana on a stamp instead of the Tuatara.

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