Image by Jonathan Newman, iNaturalist
Hey guys!
Hope you have all been OK. I’ve been working on some things, thinking of new anole sticker designs, WRITING. Been pretty productive I feel, and now I’m back, #DidYouAnole is back, the anoles… Have never left this anole website. But thank you for coming back for my posts!
Today’s anole is Anolis fraseri, the Hippie Anole.
This anole is a crown-giant that is native to low montane forests, riparian habitats and orchards in Ecuador and Colombia. The males get up to 109 mm (SVL) and the females, 116 mm.
As you can tell from the pictures, this anole’s colouring is mainly shades of green and olive with striping, and it may have blotches on its head and/or sides that are red or orange, even pink. Like many other anoles, it can change its colour to a dark brown. These colours kind of make the anole look tie-dyed to me, which I think is where its common name comes from (let me know if that’s not the case).
Some individuals may be mistaken for other anoles that occupy the same habitat with similar patterning, but can be told apart by the dewlap colour.
Photo courtesy of James A. Christensen
The Hippie Anole is a sit-and-wait predator, relying on crypsis.
According to The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo, this anole is widely distributed in the part of the forest with the vegetation cover that it prefers, but is only found in these areas, making it uncommon and possibly endangered.
A note on honourific names (like the name of this anole):
This anole is also referred to as Fraser’s Anole, however regarding recent discussion about scientific racism and honourific names, I will refer to it by its other name Hippie Anole. When I just started out as a scientist, the history of naming organisms after important figures in science seemed liked a good practice, something I desperately wanted myself, until I learnt more. While we cannot deny their valid contributions to our respective fields, we also cannot overlook their ideas regarding race. As a Black scientist, it is an uncomfortable environment where the people who did not think I was equal to them or even capable of being regarded as a human being are constantly lauded, and I am to study animals that are named after them. A constant reminder. I cannot pick and choose their legacy, I don’t have that privilege as a Black woman, it all stays with me. Our study subjects are magnificent animals, and I would like them to be just that, free from marred legacies.
...And also like every other anole. Every week. #DidYouAnole?
- #DidYouAnole – Anolis allogus - December 24, 2021
- #DidYouAnole – Anolis gundlachi - November 12, 2021
- #DidYouAnole – Anolis phyllorhinus - November 5, 2021
Rick Wallach
What a beautiful creature. Having been a hippie myself, I must have one! But I would rename it the Grateful Dead Anole in honor of the band’s fundraising work for the rain forests.
James Christensen
Thank you for this engaging look at the spectacular Anolis fraseri. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to observe this impressive giant anole in the environs of Mindo, Ecuador. To date, I have only found A. fraseri in human-altered habitat; it seems to thrive in the extensive guayaba (Psidium guajava) orchards of the valley’s lower levels. It could be that A. fraseri’s preference for the tree crown environment makes it especially difficult to spot in native tall forests. I’ll keep looking.
I’ve amassed a fair number of images of A. fraseri and many of these pictures are to be found in the collections of various stock photo agencies worldwide, with Minden Pictures being my primary agency. Although the bottom seems ever to be falling out of the stock photography market, I do derive income from the licensing of my images, and I am justifiably proud of having been picked up by such a prestigious agency as Minden some years ago. In short, my images are commercial commodities, and as such they are copyright protected and limited in distribution in conformance with the agreements I’ve signed with my agencies. Hence, (here it gets awkward) I must ask you to remove the two images that bear the watermarks of my agencies. Were I not to do so, they would eventually be found by the agencies’ ’web crawler’ anyway and you’d receive a rather more abrupt and legalistic notice.
I see that you’ve also employed photos from my Flickr account, both here and on your page treating Anolis gemmosus. Here we have more latitude: although the two pictures in question are also carried by Minden, I am free to grant use gratis, in the interest of science, shall we say? I ask only that you add a caption stating ‘Photo courtesy of James A. Christensen’, or something like that. If in the future you see anything of mine on Flickr that you’d like to use, please just ask.
Kristin Winchell
Hi James, Thanks for pointing this out. Your photos are amazing. We try to stay on the right side of copyright here at Anole Annals, but sometimes things slip by. We will be sure to remove any of your images that have agency watermarks. We will update the other images with clearer image credit and will make sure we check with you / make the image credit clear in captions in the future.
On another note, I am curious about your comment that they are found in human-altered habitat. Do they hang out on and around buildings and houses or just in disturbed habitat like orchards?
James Christensen
Hi Kristin,
No worries. And thank you for your kind words.
While I’ve never seen A. fraseri on buildings, I did see an individual that had somehow established itself in the leafy courtyard of a B & B in the centre of Mindo. Otherwise, yes, it thrives in orchards (happily, from a conservation standpoint), hedgerows, and in roadside trees.
I’ve spent a great deal of time lurking in closed canopy forest, both old secondary and primary, within its altitudinal range but have yet to see the species inside the cloud forest, although it must surely be present. It is likely that A. fraseri is simply more easily observed in disturbed habitat, where the crowns of the somewhat miniature guayaba trees are much nearer the ground.