Ambika Kamath

Monogamy, or the formation of stable pair bonds between males and females for reproductive purposes, is thought to be relatively rare across animals. While social pair formation is observed (commonly in birds and occasionally in reptiles), genetic assessments of parentage have revealed that mating fidelity is infrequent. Social monogamy is therefore not equivalent to genetic monogamy. However, the reasons for the persistence of social monogamy despite promiscuous mating remain unclear.

Sleepy lizards are the best known example of pair-bonding in lizards (photo by J. Todd Kemper)

A new paper by Alexis Harrison revisits one of the only examples of social pair-bonding known from anoles–a population of Anolis limifrons in the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. While most anoles are polygynous, with the territory of one male overlapping the territories of several females, Talbot (1979) noticed that 70% of adult A. limifrons in La Selva were found in pairs of a single male and female in close proximity to each other. However, such pair bonding has not been documented in any other population of the species, making La Selva an intriguing outlier.

A pair of Anolis limifrons (photo by Jason Weigner)

Advice Needed: GPS Tags For Giant Bronze Geckos?

By Ambika Kamath

On March 17, 2013

In Research Methods

Here’s a question for AA readers from Nancy Bunbury, from the Seychelles Island Foundation, who is conducting some exciting work on large gecko interactions, ecological roles, and niche separation in the palm forests of the Seychelles:

“The main species in question is Ailuronyx trachygaster (first field study on this amazing species) and one thing we would love to do is look at movements and territory size (also because we suspect it’s the main pollinator for the coco de mer which has huge conservation and inevitably commercial value). We are looking into GPS tags for the geckos (which are about 150g in weight) but it seems the technology for such a small tag requiring GPS and remote downloading is not yet available. Do you happen to know if such tags have yet been developed and who I might be able to contact for them (I’ve tried the standard larger companies for animal tracking devices)?”

Any suggestions?

Some Field Observations Of Sitana Ponticeriana

By Ambika Kamath

On January 25, 2013

In Notes from the Field

Every now and then we’ve had posts on this blog about non-anole lizards with anole-like dewlaps (e.g. 1, 2). Many agamids have flaps of skin under their throats that begin to resemble a dewlap, but male lizards in the South Asian genera Sitana and Otocryptis have the most “anoline” dewlaps I’ve seen so far. Indeed, some readers were almost fooled by Sitana’s resemblance, in both dewlap and dorsal patterning, to anoles. I spent the summer of 2012 documenting aspects of the display behaviour, morphology, and ecology of Sitana–here are some of my findings

Despite its ubiquity across much of peninsular India and Sri Lanka, Sitana remains relatively unstudied. Individuals across much of the range are classified as a single species, Sitana ponticeriana, despite substantial variation in dewlap morphology. It turns out that there are at least three dewlap variants, which occur, for the most part, in allopatry. Note the gradation in dewlap colouration between the three “morphs.”

Coloured-fanned, intermediate-fanned, and white-fanned male Sitana ponticeriana. Photographs by Shrikant Ranade, Jahnavi Pai, and Jitendra Katre respectively.

Tissue for genetic material: options other than tail tips?

By Ambika Kamath

On January 16, 2013

In Research Methods

I was hoping to get suggestions from the readers of AA about methods of tissue collection for genetic work other than tail tips. I’ve been working with the agamid lizard Sitana ponticeriana, and my work is now taking decidedly genetic directions. It remains unclear whether or not these lizards regenerate their lost tails–while they seem to lose tails easily, I didn’t see any lizards with noticeably regenerated tails in the field. Given this, I am a little uncomfortable with the idea of taking tail tips as tissue for genetic work. Are there other common and easy options for sampling tissue from lizards? Many thanks in advance for your responses!

(Feel free also to weigh in with whether or not you think it acceptable to collect tail tips in a species that certainly autotomizes its tail but does not grow it back–it seems like a grey area to me).

A male Sitana ponticeriana near Pune, India.

Anolis woodi at Las Alturas

By Ambika Kamath

On March 27, 2012

In Notes from the Field

Participating in the Organization for Tropical Studies’ course in tropical biology recently took me to amazing Las Alturas, a satellite field station of the Las Cruces Biological Station in southern Costa Rica. The site is adjacent to the La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, close to the border with Panama, and hiking around Las Alturas takes one into some beautiful primary forest. Returning from a long hike, course-mate Amy Miller and I happened upon this anole:

Anole at Las Alturas

Anoles as possible reservoirs for the chytrid fungus

By Ambika Kamath

On December 23, 2011

In New Research

Everyone knows the devastating effect that the chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) has had on amphibian populations almost everywhere in the world–in 2009, it was estimated to infect at least 350 amphibian species on 6 continents.

A sad photograph of frogs killed by the chytrid fungus (image from the UC Riverside Center for Invasive Species Research website)

Colour Variation in Lesser Antillean Anoles

By Ambika Kamath

On December 17, 2011

In Notes from the Field

Male A. oculatus, near Salisbury, Dominica

The recent post on the newly described Anolis tenorioensis, and the variation in both dewlap and body coloration in that group of species, reminded me of the striking variation in body pattern and colour in the Lesser Antillean Anolis oculatus. I was in Dominica in 2010, ostensibly to collect data on hummingbirds and Heliconias, but spent some of my free time watching the island’s only native anole. We were living in the west of the island, near the Caribbean coast and surrounded by dry scrubby forest, and here A. oculatus looked like this:

Anole-Hummingbird Interactions

By Ambika Kamath

On December 1, 2011

In Natural History Observations

Several posts on this blog (here and here and here) have reported interactions between birds and our favourite lizards, most of which have involved predation (but see here). Here’s a slightly different twist on the theme.

Boal (2008), in a paper in the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology, described the response of a female Antillean Crested Hummingbird on Guana Island in the British Virgin Islands to an Anolis stratulus that got too close to her nest. Anyone who has watched hummingbirds interact with each other for even a little while (particularly around hummingbird-feeders) will know how vicious they can be, and it isn’t surprising that a nesting female wouldn’t hesitate in attacking a lizard likely bigger than herself.