Greetings to the Anole Annals community,
‘Many anoles vocalize. Most, however, are either trunk-ground or arboreal forms such as this A. grahami (photo by J. Losos).
I love anoles and spend a lot of time wishing that I could personally observe the cornucopia of species that the world has to offer, though not being a scientist by profession and only encountering a small number of anole species in my immediate vicinity, I am limited to finding all about anoles that I can and trying my best to explain any interesting patterns that I notice, which brings me to the subject of this post.
On Jamaica, the island where I currently reside, there are seven species of anole lizards. However, only two of these, A. grahami and A. lineatopus, have an island-wide distribution and, more importantly, they are the only two which occur with great frequency in urban areas of south-eastern Jamaica, so naturally when I first began catching anoles these guys were my most frequent quarry. My surprise came while I was holding a large, freshly noosed grahami, which I soon discovered is not among the list of creatures that readily accept being caught. In addition to thrashing wildly and making several futile attempts to do whatever damage it could with its diminutive teeth, the lizard let out a high-pitched squeak, sort of like a rubber duck being stepped on; this was so surprising to me that I immediately flung the lizard away and was left to watch as he scrambled away, no doubt feeling pretty good about his completely accidental victory.
It didn’t take me a lot of searching on the web to find out that vocalizations had been recorded for other species of anoles before, and so I decided to compile a list of every species that I could find for which there was any record of them vocalizing; so, for anyone who has ever wondered, here it is:
- All the cybotoids (A. cybotes and relatives)
- A. garmani, A. valencienni, A. opalinus, A. grahami
- A. biporcatus, A. petersi, A. salvini (synonymous with A. vociferans)
- A.roquet, A. trinitatis, A. extremus
- A. chocorum
- A. chlorocyanus , A. coelestinus, A. vermiculatus, A. hendersoni
- A.occultus
Anolis conspersus. Anybody?
The list is immediately confounding in that there are at least three species groups up there (the grahami, hendersoni and roquet groups) in which all species are very closely related, but only some species vocalize; why is this ability popping up so inconsistently? I don’t think it has anything to do with any particular ecomorphs having more use for this ability than others as only one of the six ecomorphs is not represented, and it is also obvious that this trait is completely absent from some of the distinct lineages within Anolis (the genera proposed by Nicholson et al. 2012) while it shows up here and there in others. There are some species I suspect may possess the ability… such as A. conspersus, a close relative of A. grahami, but I have been able to find no mention or vocalization for this or any other species not listed above. I would love to hear if anyone has personally observed this for any other species (Anolis cybotes was the only cybotoid I had read about vocalizing, while all the others only came to my attention after an AA commenter gave an eyewitness testimony).
As to why this ability is present in some anoles in the first place, this seems to be a mystery. I know that a study was once conducted on A. grahami in which a few individuals were dissected and an attempt was made to identify sound producing structures, but none were found. The study also found that while the anoles vocalized while in aggressive confrontations, they did not respond to playback of these same vocalizations, at least not in the presence of visual stimuli, suggesting that these vocalizations do not play a pivotal role in anole social interactions. The effects of environment on whether an anole is able to vocalize are also probably negligent as the ability is present in all sorts of anoles, from mainland twig species living in mesic environments like A.salvini to West Indian xeric species such as A.whitemanni and all-around generalists like A.roquet of Martinique.
A. cybotes, very far from being arboreal
Then again, perhaps we are just looking too deeply into this. After all, when that anole squeaked at me I dropped him, which I’m sure is what he would have wanted to come out of that situation. Also, I have read that some anoles hiss ultrasonically when threatened or confronted; perhaps the big squeakers are just more intent on getting their point across.
Whatever the answer to this seemingly perplexing question is, I hope somebody figures it out eventually. Unfortunately I have stopped catching anoles and for the most part have stopped reading about them as well, so I probably won’t be adding any new species to the list. I hope anybody else with an interest in anoles comes across this post so they can find the full list of species. Unless there are more out there still, that is.
- Anoles and The Invasion - April 1, 2014
- Jamaica: A Land of Imperiled Nature: Threats to Jamaica’s Coastal Ecosystems Due to Proposed Developmentof the Goat Islands - December 29, 2013
- Ameiva - December 28, 2013
Joe Macedonia
To answer the question about Anolis conspersus – yes, they squeak just like A. grahami when caught. This shouldn’t be surprising, given the sister-group relationship between A. conspersus and the “Kingston” population of A. grahami (see Jackman et al., 2002, J Exp Zool [Mol Dev Evol] 294:1-16).
K.ra
Thanks for the info!
According to that paper A.grahami is paraphyletic and some populations are closer to A.conspersus than they are to other grahami,What does that say for the species status of A.conspersus?
Erite
My Green anole squeaks sometimes when he is happy (i.e feeding, bathing, shedding)
Benjamin
I heard a chirping outside my window, and only found out it was a Green Anole by waiting very patiently until I saw a head poke out from behind the canopy cloth!
Alice
I’m in Austin Texas and our green anoles chirp as often and as loud as small birds, when nighttime comes!
https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/anole/
Lisa Spears
I’m in Houston where we have an abundance of green Anoles. They do chirp, only at night. I’ve been told by elders it is a mating and territorial chirp.
Jonathan Losos
Hi Lisa, those are geckos you’re hearing, or possibly frogs. Green anoles sleep through the night.
Janis
We live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and have several anoles. We hear them chirping mostly in the evening but also all hours of the day and night too.
Grover Huff
My observation is that they sleep like the proverbial log. I have a male Green Anole who’s territory is just off my patio near Houston. He will retire at about 15 to 30 minutes after sunset and rise about 15 to 30 minutes after sunrise.
He sleeps soundly enough that I was able to pet him lightly on his back.
He has been a joy to observe.
Matt
Ok after reading everything I have access to all signs point to geckos making these squeaks/chirps I’ve been trying to identify my entire life. The problem is every gecko I’ve ever watched makes no such noise and the squeaks only come from bushes and when I look in those bushes all I’ve ever seen were baby brown anoles which I’m 90 percent sure the noise is coming from them. Just finding a gecko in or under one of these bushes would satisfy my curiosity. Everything I’ve read says anoles can’t vocalize but from what I see baby brown anoles are very talkative unless there’s a gecko hiding right next to them that I have yet to see. It’s driving me crazy I need to know.
Lisa Spears
The chirping also occurs in the bushes and grassy flower beds around my home. It is not crickets… I know a cricket chirp. I hear the chirping from all corners of my property, as I have planted a variety of greenery. I have adult and small ones, all around my property, and they transform from brown to green as necessary, based on their surroundings. They enjoy ‘sunning’ in mid-day, on my rooftops or gates, proudly boasting their beautiful orange fans under their necks. I’ve seen them jump up to 3’ and stick to just about any surface. I oftentimes find them living in my plants during the colder months in my home.
Denise
Here’s the definiative answer: Yes, brown/green anoles (I don’t know why people differentiate because they change color from brown to green and vice versa depending on what they sit-in on) DO vocalize! I live in Florida where they’re pretty much everywhere. I started hearing this loud croaking sound in my living area a week or so ago. I thought it was some kind of tree frog, which we also have in abundance here. I tried in vain to find it to let it out of the house, but I couldn’t. Then, a couple of days ago–this had been going on for over a week–I saw this adult-sized anole on the window ledge where I had been hearing this sound around coming from.
While I didn’t acutally see him vocalizing, I think it’s pretty safe to say that he would not be co-habitating in this same small territory at the same time as a frog or gecko. They just don’t live that close to each other outside.
So, I never thought they made noises either. but I think this is definitive proof for me at least that they do, indeeded croak!
Dylan
I have a brown anole that makes extremely loud duck like squeaking sounds randomly from what sounds like inside of our couch when we are sitting watching tv! Other times it even wakes us from our sleep in the other room! We always assumed it was a lizard but we finally saw a larger anole perched outside and we approached slow and he started making the sound but very softly! So happy to finally see his face! I also have a video recording of the loud sound it made!
Stephanie
I have witnessed the brown annoles on my porch make a quiet monkey like noise alot this last week and the only thing that was in common when I heard the smaller one make it, was another bigger annole was nearby within a few inches of it. It made that monkey like noise only much quieter obviously and ran away from the other annole. Very strange as this is new to hear this noise from them. Nothing else was around and it was 2ft away every time. Before this last week I didn’t know they made any noise?