As anole specialists we sometimes overlook how exciting our animals can be to other biologists and the general public. After returning to campus with a male Anolis equestris yesterday the people on my floor were amazed by this animal (granted they work on fruit flies). Photos were taken and shared with friends. While we would likely default to using cut and dry adjectives to describe most lizards, I think that the quote below demonstrates well the emotions that a non-scientist feels when observing a giant green lizard.
“OMFG! Is it just me or is that a freaking gorgeous animal? Look underneath it’s feet, the rubber part of the toes! aww. I cant get over it’s chin..Why do Lizards have that elongated loose neck…what is it called and is it used for digesting food? Your camera takes great photos. squishy and i wanna kissy. 🙂
Ok I’ll stop”
Thanks to Didem Sarikaya for passing this along. Didem’s photo is below.
- Short Faces, Two Faces, No Faces: Lizards Heads Are Susceptible to Embryonic Thermal Stress - December 15, 2021
- The Super Sticky Super Power of Lizards: a New Outreach Activity for Grade-Schoolers - April 9, 2018
- Updates on the Development of Anolis as a “Model Clade” of Integrative Analyses of Anatomical Evolution - September 4, 2017
Thomas Sanger
In the interest of full disclosure, after showing this lizard to Didem she showed me a fly species that has bright red testes that can be seen clearly through the body wall of the fly. While that is pretty cool, its still not an crown giant anole.
Pat Shipman
Nothing to say but OMG!!!!
220mya
Just goes to show you why organismal biology is so much better than working on [insert model organism here*] development.
*unless of course it’s Anolis carolinensis
Aisha Sheikh
Hey what the hell, I will tell it to the public: I think that this blog has made my week. 🙂
I can laugh at sincere but passionate and eager moments of scientific naivite, from a designers perspective who digs biomimcry. So much to learn from why animals do what they do, and are shaped how they are shaped. Everything has a purpose and breaking this down is so exciting. I always love going to Natural History museums and about science + organisms from my friend Didem. She visually explains how and why things work the way they do with full detail and excitement and it teases my imagination.