Can someone please identify this lizard to species? Is it an anole?
The preserved lizard, and the bat next to it, are sitting on a shelf in Ernest Hemingway’s bathroom, which I visited this past January. (Okay, I visited his estate and former home near Havana, Cuba, but you can’t actually step inside the house so I had to take the photograph–with my iPhone–through the open bathroom window.)
As everyone knows, Hemingway was a consummate sportsman, fisherman and hunter. He especially was a fan of big game; many trophy heads of large African mammals decorate the walls of his living room. Surely, however, there is no bigger game than the giant lizard shown here. I presume that it was taken on his estate, but as far as I can tell there is no collecting tag or other kind of identifying label and nobody whom I asked could shed any additional light. Indeed, no one else whom I was with had even noticed the two prize specimens sitting in adjacent jars.
For more information about the estate, look here: <http://www.hemingwaycuba.com/finca-la-vigia.html>.
Thanks very much.