On our recent field trip to Mexico, we were joined by AA contributor Ramon E. Martinez-Grimaldo. Ramon kindly gave me this lovely sculpture of Anolis sagrei. It’s the nicest anole sculpture I’ve ever seen! It’s made of resin and the artist is Luis Ivan Huerta. Check out his website; in the section “dermoplastias,” he put a picture of the anole’s sculpture. Perhaps Luis will see this post and tell us whether it’s possible to order other anole creations!
Year: 2013 Page 11 of 37
Broken Caribbean termite nest. These termites may infect anoles with a thorny-headed worm parasite, Oncicola venezualensis.
Among the many anole parasites are the acanthocephalans, or thorny-headed worms, which in anoles are typically found as encysted larvae in the body cavity, muscle, or under the skin. One of these acanthocephalans – Oncicola venezualensis – is relatively common in anoles on the Puerto Rican Bank, and is the main character in one of my favorite anole-parasite stories. The story has three parts: 1) how the parasite gets into anoles, 2) how it continues its life cycle beyond anoles, and 3) the mystery of when it all began.
In addition to anoles, O. venezualensis larvae occur in the Caribbean termites Nasutitermes acajutlae on the Puerto Rican Bank, which is a partially submerged landmass comprised of Puerto Rico and all the Spanish, U.S., and British Virgin Islands except St. Croix. These termites construct protective nests and foraging tubes in which they live (see photo), and each individual termite belongs to a morphologically distinct caste. Most are in either the soldier or worker caste, and soldiers are larger than workers, aggressive, and armed with big mandibles. These two castes also have slight color differences – worker termites have yellow heads, whereas soldier termites have dark yellow heads.
Anoles eat termites, and O. venezualensis manipulates both the behavior and appearance of its termite hosts in order to increase the likelihood that the parasitized individuals will be preyed on by anoles (Fuller et al. 2003). Infected termites behave carelessly when compared to their uninfected peers. When a foraging tube is broken, for example, the parasitized workers arrive quickly and then linger, a behavior that makes them more susceptible to predation by anoles. Infected termites also look different, as the head color of infected workers changes to a pale yellow. This increases the difference in appearance between the parasitized workers and the aggressive soldiers, and anoles presumably try to avoid eating soldiers (remember that anoles are smart decision-makers!). The color-changing strategy is effective – in feeding trials with Anolis cristatellus where the lizards were presented with petri dishes containing both parasitized and parasite-free workers, the lizards consistently preferred the light-colored parasitized termites.
After the anole ingests a termite infected with O. venezualensis, the parasite encysts (i.e., forms a cytacanth) somewhere outside of the host’s gastrointestinal tract. In anoles it remains in its larval form, unable to complete its life cycle, and waits for the lizard to be ingested by its definitive host where it will mature into an adult and undergo sexual reproduction. The identity of O. venezualensis‘s definitive host remained elusive for some time. Two primary suspects were mongooses and the pearly-eyed thrashers, since both eat anoles and are common on the Puerto Rican Bank. But, O. venezualensis remains in its larval form in both of these hosts (Nickol et al. 2006). The mystery was solved a couple of years ago – it’s cats! Fuller and Nickol (2011) necropsied a feral cat on St. John and found 87 adult worms. The life cycle for O. venezualensis is now understood to be termite → lizard or bird → cat, then begins again when termites ingest parasite eggs in cat feces. The mongooses aren’t eaten by cats, and so are dead-end hosts for the parasites.
For me, learning that the cat is the definitive host was a head-scratcher. We know that cats eat anoles, and feral cats are abundant on the Virgin Islands, particularly St. Thomas. But, it’s hard to imagine how a parasite with a complex life cycle of at least three hosts (termites, anoles/birds, cats) became invasive across so many islands. It’s also possible that a different, native anole-eater also serves as the definitive host. Bats are the only extant native mammal species on the Virgin Islands, and we know that some bat species eat anoles. Perhaps bats are the original definitive hosts? In any case, the populations of O. venezualensis have likely increased in recent times due to the introduction of cats on those islands, and whether that’s had any effect on the anole populations is unknown.
There is quite a bit of evidence that anoles like to display from relatively high perches (e.g. references in this paper), a tendency that seems to cross over to their Old World counterparts, the agamids (e.g. Sitana ponticeriana, as outlined here). The hypothesized reason for this choice is that displaying from high perches enables lizards to be maximally visible to conspecifics, ensuring that broadcast displays are heeded by the neighbours. This summer, my field assistant Divyaraj Shah spotted a Calotes versicolor in Kutch, India, displaying from the most exposed perch I’ve ever seen a lizard on. See if you can spot it below:
Spot the displaying Calotes versicolor
Photo by David Herasimtschuk
David Herasimtschuk took this striking photo along the Rio Carbon near the town of Bribri in Costa Rica. Here’s what happened: “The story of how I photographed this image was very bizarre. I was working my way up a stream with the intent to film poison frogs along the bank, and I saw the blue morpho floating down the stream. It was fluttering and still alive, but was being harassed by a school of very hungry fish. Feeling sorry for the animal and curious to see a blue morpho up close I pulled it out of the water. At that point it wasn’t doing to well, but I felt bad throwing it back in the stream, so I placed it on a branch thinking if it might be able to rest and dry off. I then left to film frogs, and came back about a half an hour later. When I returned the butterfly was gone. Initially I thought it had survived and flew off, but then I saw a bright blue shape in the mouth of stream anole a couple feet from where I had placed it. It was a strange set of events, and it definitely reinforced my belief that when you live in a tropical forest everything wants to eat you.”
This photo is a treat from tweet-o-sphere, posted by Miguel Angel Zapata, who did not respond to my request for more information. And that’s really all I’ve got to say. Anolis taylori is a relatively little-known anole from southern Guerrero, Mexico. As far as I’m aware, there’s only been one paper written on this species, by Fitch and Henderson in the Journal of Herpetology in 1976 (and this paper, in turn, has only been cited five times). The species apparently is usually round in boulder piles, on the sides of rocks, as well as on rocks and trees. Does anyone know any more about this species?
Here’s the abstract to that paper, which also concerned Anolis gadovii:
Anolis gadovii and Anolis taylori are medium-large, saxicolous anoles of southern Guerrero, Mexico. The first named species is confined to a small area near Tierra Colorada, about 50 km inland, the second is limited to the immediate Coast Range in the vicinity of Acapulco. For both the habitat is on steep, wooded slopes with piles of large, loose boulders. Compared with other anoles, these are relatively stenothermic and tolerant of high temperatures, with a preferendum between 29 and 30 (at least for A. taylori). The habitat of A. gadovii, especially, is xeric, and during the dry season the anoles tend to stay deep in the rocks where temperature remains low and humidity is high. In both species reproduction is suspended during the drier part of the year and by the beginning of the rainy season in July the population consists essentially of adults. In areas of favorable habitat with high population density of A. taylori many home ranges were found to overlap. Favorite perches and look-outs were used by a succession of individuals with frequent territorial contests. Males of A. gadovii and A. taylori are about the same size, females of A. gadovii are somewhat smaller, and females of A. taylori are markedly smaller. Anolis dunni, a non-saxicolous species living at somewhat higher altitude, is like A. taylori in many of its characters, and is annectent to other montane species.
The best anole fossils have been found in amber [e.g. 1,2]. Amber is, of course, fossilized tree resin, and I have often wondered how likely it would be that a lizard would manage to get itself stuck in tree resin. After all, as we know from catching them, small lizards are nothing if not agile.
Sitana ponticeriana is a small agamid lizard found in dry habitats across South Asia. Though most commonly found in disturbed, open habitats, they also occur in the rapidly dwindling stands of thorn scrub forest found across India.These forests are dominated by resin-producing Acacias, and are being invaded by the resin-producing Prosopis juliflora.
Acacia forest in Kutch, India
This sort of forest is exactly where you might expect to find lizards interacting with resin, and here is an example. This female Sitana ponticeriana, caught in the forest shown above, had a finger on her front foot completely stuck in a little ball of resin. It is easy to imagine how a slightly smaller lizard or a slightly larger piece of resin could result in an inextricable lizard and, in several thousand years, a very cool fossil!
Female Sitana ponticeriana with resin stuck to her toe
Dear readers of Anole Annals,
Last year, I posted here requesting photos of extended dewlaps of adult male anoles of any species, for use in a study of the relationship between dewlap size and speciation rate. I thank all the readers who sent in one or a few photos, as well as the prolific photographers who have contributed many more. I even chipped in a few of my own photos last summer in Puerto Rico:
Thanks to everyone’s contributions, I’m up to around 185 species, even better than I’d hoped for. Before I start the analyses, I wanted to put out another call for photos, to see if anyone who missed the first post can help to fill in some of the species that are still missing from the collection.
In 2007 a multi-disciplinary group (Yasel U. Alfonso, Florida Museum of Natural History, USA; Lourdes Rodriquez-Schettino, Institute of Ecology and Systematics, Cuba; and Denis Dennis Avila, Faculty of Biology, University of Havana, Cuba) began to investigate phenotypic plasticity in three Anolis jubar subspecies. We quantified variation in meristic traits, head shape, microhabitat use (i.e, escape behavior, thermoregulation, feeding) and dewlap colour to see if any of these characters differs at a geographic, and subspecies level. 
We analyzed variations on body dimensions and head shape (using geometric morphometrics) and their relationships with microhabitat use and found that A.j.albertscwartzi was the most differentiated subspecies (manuscript in prep.). Interestingly, Cadiz et. al. recently found Anolis jubar albertschwartzi to be more closely to Anolis homolechis than other A. jubar subspecies based on markers. The differences between our findings and genetic studies by Cadiz et al. (2013) highlight the need for a better understanding of how selective traits are shaped by speciation and selective forces.
For the last few years, our multi-disciplinary group included two new members (Humberto J. Morris, Center of Studies for Industrial Biotechnology, Cuba; and John E. Steffen, School of Science, Penn State Behrend, PA) and we have been investigating pigment patterns in anoles from Eastern Cuba. Our first approach was analyzing the dewlap colour variation among three Anolis jubar subspecies (A.j.oriens, A.j.maisiensis, and A.j.albertscwartzi) using two alternative methods: 1) digitally, using RGB analyses with Munsell’s colour system (manuscript in prep.) and 2) spectrophotometrically, using pigment concentration variation to analyze subspecies level variation in dewlap colors (manuscript available in Copeia, 2013 issue 2, “Dewlap Color Variation Based on Pterin and Carotenoid Pigments in Three Subspecies of Anolis jubar of the Cuban Southern Coast”).
This research was made throughout fall 2008 and fall 2009, and we focused on quantifying the subspecies-level flexibility in dewlap pigmentation using only biochemical compounds from dewlap skin. We found that Anolis jubar albertschwartzi was the most differentiated subspecies based on pigment concentration (see details, Fig. 1 & 2) giving a light yellow shade of his dewlap coloration. 
We are performing similar pigmentary studies on several other Eastern Cuba anoles (e.g., A. allogus, A. rubribarbus, A. sagrei, A. porcus, A. anfiloquioi, A. cyanopleurus) and results will be available soon (manuscript in prep.).
In addition, I am leading other ongoing projects. One will attempt to explain relationships between color production and immune system health. Because pterins can also be synthesized by nonintegumentary tissues, most notably by immune cells (e.g. monocytes, macrophages), they may illustrate a critical link between color production and immunity in a colour-signalling system.
Finally, we’re analyzing anti-predator escape behavior, microhabitat use, and thermoregulation of anoles species on the semiarid southern coast (i.e., Guantanamo) (manuscript in prep.). All of these projects will keep us busy during next year.
No, it’s not a hybrid, but why do some anoles do this? And how? Read all about it in a recent post on dust tracks on the web.
Photo by Luke Mahler.
I have noticed things like this myself. Some times when you noose a lizard, the scales underneath the noose turn dark. And so species show patterns when they are stressed that they don’t normally flaunt, like the A. garmani below. Anyone have thoughts or similar observations? Or a better photo of the phenomenon in garmani? Some images online suggest that males do this to a lesser extent when being aggressive to other males.