This photo’s bouncing around the internet. It’s clearly Phenacosaurus, but which one? Doesn’t look like the P. heterodermus discussed in recent posts.
Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.
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Rosario Castañeda
Where is the specimen from?
Skip (James) Lazell
WOW! Doesn’t look like any phenacosaur I ever saw! Skip
Gabriel N. Ugueto
What a beautiful anole! It certainly doesn’t look like any Phenacosaurus I’ve seen, and I think I have seen photographs of all the species that have been described. I once saw a picture of a striped Phenacosaur from the easternmost portion of the eastern Andes in Colombia near the border with Venezuela but that was either a color variation of P. nicefori or a closely related taxon. This one looks to me like it is most similar to P. heterodermus, vanzolini or inderenae. Could this specimen be a female? Many female anole tend to have this pattern of a light colored vertebral stripe.
gabriel gartner
Could the striping be the result of some developmental abnormality during incubation? I know in many snakes, animals born before term are often striped or are striped as a result of being either too hot or cold during gestation/incubation.
Rafael Moreno
It´s an heterodermus I have seen that phenotype in Tabio and Madrid Cundinamarca (Colombia). I dont known if vanzolini also has blue eyelids.
Gabriel N. Ugueto
Anolis vanzolini does not have blue eyelids and neither does A. indernae for that matter (which is rather similar in coloration to vanzolini). So you are right Rafael, in that sense, this animal is most similar to heterodermus. Do you know if this phenotype is present in both sexes or just in females?
Fernando Ayala
This phenoype is present in Anolis orcesi too. Just in females.
Silas Ginn
Wow that’s one gorgeous anole! Where’s this on the map?
Yanno what I’d love to see, is a “sight-seeing tour of anoles” for either Canadians visiting Cuba – (Yanks can go now too, right?) So that interested people would know exactly where they should look, and how.
And even better still, I’m keen on making a motorcycle trip to Tierra Del Fuego one of these days. If I knew where and when to stop, what anoles to be looking for in which locales, etc – that would be fantastic.
‘Cause this is how I want to enjoy anoles from here on in. Just to see ’em and photograph ’em in nature. Rather than keeping ’em boxed in, captive.
I suppose I’m capable of looking up the collection data myself, checking out the coordinates etc. But it would sure narrow things down just knowing what’s not too far off the beaten path which is the Pan-American Highway. Or it’s “tributaries” & secondary roads. A planned itinerary of one anole species per day’s worth of riding, etc.
Or at least, a few pictorial maps of range for each species, which could blow up into a larger map including roads. Good GAWD I hope I’m not suggesting Google Maps ha-ha. Something much more generalized than that.
I’m thinking of the book from the pet shops of 20-25yrs ago, “Caribbean Anoles” which I enjoyed very much back in my lizard keeping days. I always dreamed of going to those places, but I knew it’s far more realistic that I’d tour around Central America on a motorcycle, rather than sail or fly from island to island. As such I’ve always wished there were a mainland equivalent/accompaniment to this book. Or a series perhaps?
Oh how nice it would be to make such a trip, unhurried and meandering, following the camera lens wherever it wishes to click a pic. Of course, take that too far and I’d get the bike sunk up to it’s handlebars on some lovely beach somewhere, and remain there stuck forevermore, stripping the engine down for a rebuild, making a new electrical system from parts of The Professor’s Coconut Radio…..
But yeah – a MAP – an Audubon’s field guide of anole watchers’ delights. In water-proof pocket book format. Truth be told, I think it would sell in large volumes to the geeks who never travel themselves. Just like all of the aquarium reptile bird orchid & houseplant books I’ve bought over the past 35yrs!