coqui8

In a recent paper in Life: the Excitement of Biology, Neftalí Ríos-López and colleagues report an observation of a male Anolis gundlachi catching an eating a coqui frog.  Here’s the short story–read the paper for more details: “…we observed a male Anolis gundlachi (Yellow-Chinned Anole: SVL 57.1 mm; tail length 88.1 mm) that sprinted down a trunk (8.7 cm diameter at breast height) of a Sierra Palm (Arecales: Araceae: Prestoea acuminata var. montana [Graham] An. Hend. and Galeano, 1996), dived into the leaf litter, and caught an adult E. wightmanae by his head (SVL 22.4 mm; this individual was not calling).”

By coincidence, shortly before seeing this article, we were alerted that Carmen Reyes had posted this photo on Facebook. Here’s her report: “We just went to visit a friend and I saw this lizard with something too big for him in his mouth. I took a closer look but not too close so I can have a better look… and voilà, it was a coqui…First we thought that he had a cockroach. I took the picture and as I got closer, he moved and started climbing the wall, but the coqui fell from his mouth… so I hope that the coqui is alive.

Photo by Carmen Reyes

Jonathan Losos
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