Part I: Anolis lamari
Adult male (bottom) and female (top) Anolis lamari (Photo: Joseph Barnett)
Anoles in the Caribbean have been an evolutionary and ecological model system for decades. But as readers of this blog will know, much less is known about the approximately 200 species of the mainland. Colombia is the most species-rich region for anoles, with around 70 species, and harbors an active and historical group of anole workers. Recently, much research has addressed many of the enigmatic anole forms, but we still have much to learn.
The Anolis tigrinus group (sensu Williams, 1976) consists of A. tigrinus, A. solitarius, A. nasofrontalis, A. pseudotigrinus, A. santamartae. A. menta, A. ruizii, A. lamarii, A. paravertibralis and A. umbrivagus. Despite the informal origin of this group, these species form a clade with A. laevis in Poe et al.’s 2017 phylogenetic analysis and should likely be treated as a natural unit. With Ivan Prates and collaborators’ rediscovery of A. pseudotigrinus and A. nasofrontalis (Prates et al., 2017), as well as work on the anoles of Venezuela (Ugeuto et al., 2009), the Colombian forms within this group remain among the least known anoles.
Among tigrinus-group anoles within Colombia, Anolis ruizii and A. lamari inhabit the Amazonian Andean slope of the Cordillera Oriental, whereas A. menta, A. solitarius, A. santamartae, A. umbrivagus, and A. paravertebralis occupy the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta range in the northeast corner of the country.
The tigrinus-group anoles are small species with an SVL around 50 mm. They are characterized by large plate-like head scales, short limbs, and cryptic coloration. Dewlaps in males tend to be a white and yellow-orange, while female dewlap coloration varies by species. Another trait shared by each member of the group is a startling dearth of information on each of them. Outside of broad-scale phylogenetic estimates of the entire genus, very little published literature exists regarding anything more than the existence of any of these species. The original descriptions of these lizards involve small sample sizes (from 1 to 11 individuals), and collections outside of the type series are limited.
The hunt for Anolis lamari
In January of 2020, I was fortunate to be invited on an anole hunt with Steve Poe, as we attempted to learn a bit more about several forms listed within this group. Our main research involved work on the Santa Marta anoles with Beto Rueda-Solano and José Luis Pérez-González (see next blog post). But with a few days in the Bogotá area before our formal research commitment, we elected to search for the elusive Anolis lamari on the Amazonian Andean slope. This species was described from a single male specimen collected by Will Lamar in 1980 and had not been recorded in the ensuing four decades. Field notes and the collected male allowed Williams (1992) to publish Lamar’s find as a new species. After a flight into Bogotá, we headed south through the town of Guayabetal. We stopped off for some local cuisine and washed lunch down with our first can of Cerveza Aguila. Officially in country.
Sweet lodging near the type locality
From there, we moved on to our lodging that night. Based on the description of the type locality, Steve had pinpointed several areas to the west of Guayabetal that could potentially harbor Anolis lamari. We reached our quaint room tucked in to the mountains near the Rio Blanco. After meeting our hosts Gilberto and Julia, we headed to bed in the Colombian afternoon to get ready for a night of herping. Lodging pros: great location; pleasant setting with secondary anole habitat; friendly hosts; price of $9/night (+$1 cleaning fee). Lodging con: regular boisterous well-attended campesino Aguila fiesta outside our window during prime sleep hours in the afternoon.
Steve’s preferred method for finding anoles involves waiting until nightfall before heading out with a couple high-power lights and ambushing the anoles while they sleep. Given the genus-wide propensity for sleeping on exposed perches (e.g. leaves, twigs), anoles offer an easier target at night. Cryptic lichenous coloration is of little use to the lizard when they decide to sleep against a green background, or present a raised profile on twigs above the ground. As a further advantage to the herper, their reduced awareness allows for easy capture by hand.
In this style, we set out at nightfall to begin our search. Cruising along the local roads, we stopped at a well-forested area Steve had estimated as the potential actual site of collection of the type specimen of Anolis lamari (4.1676° N, 73.8192° W; Datum WGS 1984; 1625 m elevation). Within the first ten minutes we had found an anole! After a collaborative effort to secure the lizard in hand, we arrived at the moment of truth – the dewlap. Unfurling it, we found an unusual black dewlap with white scales (pictured below). For having no expectations about what the dewlap would reveal, the uncommon black color came as a surprise to me. The dewlap did not match William’s description of the male, leading to the possible conclusions
Our first male Anolis lamari (Photo: Joseph Barnett)
that we either had a female A. lamari or a new species entirely. After a few minutes of photography, we continued our search at the suspected type locality. In another 90 minutes we found an adult male and seven additional lizards for a nice series of six adult females, one adult male, and two juveniles. The presence of the male matching Williams’ description confirmed our black-dewlapped individual was indeed the first record of a lamari female. Thrilled with our success, we decided to broaden our sampling efforts in the surrounding territory and headed off into the night. We had found one species, an apparent rediscovery of A. lamari, and weren’t too far from the type locality of A. inderenae – what else might be out there?
Well, it turns out not much. Despite our best efforts until morning we found no anoles outside of the quarter mile stretch in which we had found Anolis lamari. We sampled high. We sampled low. We sampled pristine forests, disturbed roadsides and, really, anywhere with a plant that might harbor a sleeping anole. We searched for anoles all night, but ended up with nothing but a skunk for the rest of the night. As the sun came up over the mountains, we decided to call it a night, ecstatic at finding a species that hadn’t been officially seen in three decades and eager to try again.
A. Male Dewlap, B. Female Dewlap of adult Anolis lamari. (Photo: Steven Poe)
After sleeping through the day, we redoubled our efforts the following evening and encountered the same quizzical narrow geographic pattern. We found more Anolis lamari at a brief stop at the type locality, but no anoles anywhere else. We searched the surrounding 15 km over an elevational range of 1000 to 2000 meters without success. We took our photographs and bid adios to the type locality of Anolis lamari.
A more scientific treatise on our work with Anolis lamari can be found here in our paper published in Herpetology Notes.
Future Directions
As would be expected, newfound knowledge leads to many more questions. Reviewing the description of Anolis ruizii, we find that females of that species also are described to have a black dewlap similar to what we found in A. lamari. The trait Williams purported to distinguish A. lamari and A. ruizii is the presence of a parietal spur—a bony process extending posteriorly from the skull–in lamari (absent in ruizii). We found this spur to be variably present not only in our sample of A. lamari, but also in previous specimen observations of several other species within the tigrinus group. The spur is most prominent in large males, which is consistent with the type specimen Williams was working with. Furthermore, both A. lamari and A. ruizii are found along the Amazonian slope of the Andean Cordillera Oriental, albeit with significant distance between their type localities. Our best guess at this point is that A. lamari is a junior synonym of A. ruizii. Further work to include broad sampling of the region between the two type localities is warranted to confirm or refute this hypothesis.
Known localities for Anolis lamari vs. A. ruizii
The next issue that deserves a second look is the apparent lack of congeners as well as the extremely narrow observed range of Anolis lamari. We found A. lamari in good numbers in a roughly quarter mile stretch of road, but found no other anoles in two nights of searching. The most likely explanation is that, in our limited sampling, we simply missed on some congeners that were there (minimally, A. fuscoauratus and a green anole like A. huilae would be expected). Alternatively, the apparent limited distribution of A. lamari may have been an artifact of the dry season (our success occurred at a creek-crossing that was noticeably wetter than most other habitat we could find; see Ryan and Poe 2014), or the elevation may have played a factor in reducing diversity. Other anole species (e.g. A. scypheus, A. indernae) have been found at comparable elevations nearby and further sampling efforts may reveal congeners sympatric to A. lamari. Worth noting: other species within the group (menta, solitarius) also appear to exist as “solitary” anoles (see Williams et al. 1970; see next blog post).
The third major question calls for life history data. While Steve’s methods are adept for collecting rare anoles, they exclude the possibility of even minimal active observations for anole species. The diurnal ecology of Anolis lamari (and many other mainland forms) remains virtually unknown. The original description of A. lamari indicates that they may crawl on the ground and are sluggish in cold weather. We suspect there’s plenty more to say there.
Rick Wallach
Exciting work. Well played, gentlemen!
Emma
The Caribbean wildlife is extremely diverse and, in addition to big cats and sea turtles, you can also see very special animals on the islands, such as the “swimming pigs” of the Bahamas, which have become a sensation and can be found on Big Major Cay in the Exumas. Thanks for the post.