Photo by Frank Burbrink
Ophidiologist extraordinaire Frank Burbrink posted a photo of this Costa Rican anole on Facebook, challenging several of us to identify it. The consensus is that it’s A. lionotus or perhaps A. poecilopus. Any thoughts? More importantly, Frank of snake phylogenetics fame (including a paper on Caribbean serpents), had this to say:
“I really like these streamside anoles. Ecologically and morphologically they seem so un-Anolis like. There were tons of these guys along the wet rocks also inhabited by plethodontids nearby. I would love to see an Anole Annals post about these the very wet streamside anoles.”
So, here one is! He goes on:
“First off…they seemed unusually wet and cold. Second they were everywhere. Third they seemed to be able to hold onto the face of very slippery large rocks (boulders)…some right next to the waterfalls. I am not sure how they actually got there…unless they swam and crawled up the face of the rock. That seems like it wouldn’t take much effort to observe how they do it. Anyhow, everything about them was very non-anole like—other than the huge dewlap, body and head shape.”
Photo by Frank Burbrink
“They seem to exist in a niche not filled by other lizards …certainly not even the semi-aquatic gymnothalmids. It makes you wonder from what ancestral ecomorph they invaded this particular niche…which again seems so un-Anolis” like.
Editor’s note: we’ll be hearing soon about the talks in the upcoming herp meetings, one of which is on aquatic anoles. More on that soon.
A twofer. Photo by Frank Burbrink
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John G. Phillips
Definitely an oxylophus (if you agree with splitting oxylophus and lionotus). You can only find lionotus in western Panama, and poecilopus east of the Canal Zone. If you consider the two species the same, then the pictures’ anoles would be lionotus.
Daniel Scantlebury
On Hispaniola A. christophei is the sister species to the aquatic A. eugenegrahami. Christophei is commonly found on cliff faces in forested environments, and these sorts of structures frequently have lots of ground water seeping through cracks. I’ve also collected christophei on stream sides. I’d predict the ancestral stock for most aquatic anoles lived on wet rocks.
Klaas Bosker
I share your fascination; I keep and have bred Norops Aquaticus for years now. See pics.
They like to sit on stones and rocks in running water and don’t like temperatures over 24 They seem to bee atracted by the sound of fallingwater. The spececific environment they prefer allows for some fascinating paludarium scenery. With trickling, falling and standing water.
James Stroud
Fantastic! Do you have any pictures of your paludarium enclosures?
Robert Powell
We did some work with aquatic anoles a few years ago, although it’s been put on hold for the time being. One thing we did notice is that aquatics tend to have longer and more robust claws, which might help explain how they hang onto wet rocks.
That said, I have observed distinctly non-aquatic species (notably Anolis chlorocyanus, a trunk-crown ecomorph) readily take to water when disturbed. They swam well and were not averse to diving beneath the surface. So, maybe all anoles have an “aquatic” gene or two…
Luke Mahler
Bob, I think you’re right. I was curious about this after seeing Anolis eugenegrahami a few years ago in Haiti, so I started looking around to see if anyone had done any behavioral comparisons with aquatic and non-aquatic anoles. I’m sure my search wasn’t exhaustive, but I turned up two gems by Heatwole and colleagues from the early 60s in which they report occasional escape into water by A. pulchellus and A. cristatellus. It would be interesting to try this out with more species – especially some that rarely or never encounter standing water (e.g., dry forest species). Here are those refs if anyone’s interested:
Heatwole, H., Ortiz, E., Diaz-Collazo, A. M., & Jiminez-Velez, A. R. (1962). Aquatic tendencies in the Puerto Rican pasture-lizard, Anolis pulchellus. Herpetologica, 17(4), 272–274.
Heatwole, H., & Torres, F. (1963). Escape of Anolis cristatellus cristatellus by submerging in water. Herpetologica, 19(3), 223–223.
Robert Powell
After a little searching, I came up with a short natural history note we did on the Anolis chlorocyanus observation mentioned previously. The reference is:
Powell, R. and J.S. Parmerlee, Jr. 1993. Anolis chlorocyanus. Aquatic activity. Herpetological Review 24: 59.
Luke Mahler
Nice! I’ll add it to my file!
Klaas Bosker
Well here’s one,
Klaas Bosker
sorry to large