Three in The Bed: a Curious Case of a Shared Sleeping Perch in a Neotropical Anole

Opposite views of a communal sleeping event (1 male, 2 females) of Anolis cusuco at Parque Nacional Cusuco, Departamento Cortes, Honduras (Brown & Arrivillaga, 2018)

Let’s be honest: anoles are fascinating! These charismatic and well-adapted lizards are always a pleasure to watch and document. Better yet, no matter how well you think you know a species, they’re still always full of surprises.

The sleeping behavior of anoline lizards is a fascinating aspect of their natural history, and a growing amount of literature has detailed species-specific sleeping activities. Typically, anoles are considered solitary sleepers owing to their territorial nature, but ‘behind closed doors,’ this may not always be the case!

For those curious, a recent ‘behavioral oddity’ published in Mesoamerican Herpetology by Brown & Arrivillaga (2018), reported an example of three individual Anolis (Norops) cusuco sleeping together on a perch! The individuals were so close that portions of their bodies overlapped! Strange, indeed; this observation contrasts the typical view of anole sleeping ecology, territoriality and indeed that what is known for this species (Clause & Brown, 2017). In over 5 years of visiting Cusuco NP (observing countless solitary sleeping A. cusuco), imagine the surprise in finding these anoles having a sneaky snuggle!!

As we wrote: “Although a conclusive explanation is not available, we suggest that because the sleeping group consisted of one male and two females, that the shared perch might have been breeding-related. This situation might be associated with the overlap of male and female territories, or by the anoles awakening close to necessary resources. Conceivably, however, courtship might have been interrupted by nightfall, and the orientation of the sleeping male ensured that courting would continue the following morning.”