Anolis cristatellus predating on Eleutherodactylus martinicensis; photo taken by Jeanelle Brisbane
In the (sub)tropics of the Western Hemisphere, it is not uncommon to come across sleeping anoles while strolling around at night in (partially) vegetated areas; they are after all considered diurnal. It was therefore quite a shock when active anoles appeared in the beam of our headlights during the nights of 18 January and 16 April 2019 on the Commonwealth of Dominica. On the first night, we observed how a juvenile Anolis cristatellus (non-native) jumped from one grass style to the next and successfully caught a fly; on the second night, the adult A. cristatellus had a still alive and resisting, frog (Eleutherodactylus martinicensis) in its mouth (see photo).
An increasing number of anole species are being found to utilize artificial light sources after sunset, and thereby extend their activity period, allowing increased growth and fecundity. What made our encounter especially unsuspected was the absence of artificial light in the area we were surveying for the removal of newly arrived alien species. Instead, these nights (waxing gibbous with 91.7-92.9% visibility) were close to the full moon, and without cloud cover. Our observations were at 19:59 and 20:40h, almost 2 hours after the end of astronomical twilight; it was night.
The area of our observations consists of several abandoned plots nearby the harbor, overgrown with grasses, vines, and bushes. The edges of this open area are partially made up of a single line of trees, shorter than 7 m in height.
Our observations indicate a potential understudied part of anole ecology, though more observations are needed to understand the occurrence of this behavior, both within and among species. However, ex-situ, some authors have already demonstrated that anoles show activity under moonlight conditions, which appeared more evident for shade-adapted species.
In our paper just published in Neotropical Biodiversity, we discuss several to-be-tested hypotheses and address how our observations could shed new light on anole predation by nocturnal predators, like owls and bats. Beyond anoles, observations of nocturnal activity by diurnal reptiles have been reported on some occasions. The observations of this behavior in Anolis are of special importance given the large body of literature and understanding of these model species; allowing the scientific community to test hypotheses and move beyond observational reports.
Excitingly, since the publication of our work we have been in contact with enthusiast readers of which one indicated to have observed moonlight-facilitated activity as well but did not write that up, yet.
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Don Lyman
Interesting. Some animals, most notably some bat species, exhibit lunar phobia, and decrease their foraging activities on nights with a lot of moonlight, presumably because of possible increased risk of predation. Check out this meta-analysis of lunar phobia in bats and their ecological correlates.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236231402_Lunar_phobia_in_bats_and_its_ecological_correlates_A_meta-analysis