Elise Knowlton, a graduate student in Manuel Leal’s Lab at Duke University, reports on the initiation of her field research on mating behavior in green anoles in North Carolina
Author: Jonathan Losos Page 101 of 130
Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.
Photo from http://static.flickr.com/75/183141170_b188735c85.jpg
Vega-Castillo and Puente-Rolón in the December, 2011 issue of Herpetological Review report fruit consumption by A. gundlachi, A. stratulus and, most notably, the grass-bush A. krugi. This adds to recent reports of frugivory in three other Puerto Rican species, A. cuvieri, A. evermanni and A. monensis.
As I discussed in Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, frugivory is quite common in anoles, but there are interesting ecological and biogeographical aspects:
“Many anole species are known to eat fruits at least occasionally, and in some species at some localities, frugivory is quite common (Herrel et al., 2004). Species known to be frugivorous are larger than those not known to eat fruits, and West Indian species are frugivorous more than mainland species (30% versus 0% in Herrel et al.’s [2004] survey). Among West Indian anoles, no grass-bush anoles and all crown-giants have been reported to be frugivorous; data for other ecomorphs is mixed. My hunch is that when more species are studied, almost all but the smallest species will be found to occasionally take fruit. For example, the fact that an A. evermanni, not definitively known to eat fruit, once jumped on my shoulder, ran down my arm, perched on my thumb, and bit at the red knob of the stop watch I was holding suggests to me that this trunk-crown anole will eat red berries, just like many other anoles. Seeds (Reagan, 1996) and “seeds or fruit” (Lister, 1981) have been reported in the diet of this species, so my prediction that it is frugivorous is not very daring.
Seed eating is also reported for a number of species (e.g., Wolcott, 1923; Reagan, 1996). In some cases, these seeds may have been ingested incidentally, but in other instances, seeds, which are digested more slowly than pulp, may be the last remaining trace of a fruity meal in the digestive tract of an anole.
Nectarivory has been reported in a number of West Indian trunk-crown anoles (Liner, 1996; Perry and Lazell, 1997; Campbell and Bleazy, 2000; Echternacht and Gerber, 2000; Okochi et al., 2006; Valido, 2006), a grass-bush anole (Perry and Lazell, 2006), and two Lesser Antillean species (Timmermann et al., 2008). The greater occurrence of frugivory and nectarivory among island species compared to those on the mainland agrees with a trend seen for lizards in general (Olesen and Valido, 2003).
Andrew Stone writes:
I thought some of the contributors to Anole annals might enjoy seeing this–or at least pointing out the mistakes. It can be seen here.
I recently finished a small, multicolor woodblock print of Anolis carolinensis. It took a trip back to Florida to see the actual model but during the preparatory phase I found some useful pictures on your anole website. The print was my contribution to a “Year of the Dragon” exchange among a group of international printmakers.
I took some artistic license–a different block was carved for each color and I tried to keep the number of blocks to a minimum.
You’re welcome to include a link to the website/blog post if you think your regular contributers would enjoy seeing it.
I don’t think I’ll be doing any other anoles any time soon so didn’t wan’t to post as a contributer. If it is too off-topic don’t worry about including it. I just thought anole folks might get a lift out of seeing a layperson’s take of a small, Florida lizard.
We’ve talked about anoles stowing away in potted plants and in wood shipments, and hitch-hiking on planes, but here’s a new one. AA reader Justin Sponholz writes: “My father used to work at Federal Bakers, a food shipment company up here in Buffalo, NY. In a sealed bucket of sugar there was an adult female A. sagrei. My dad brought it to me and she lived for 4+ years. It was in the mid-90s. I know she wouldn’t have survived in the wild but yea she still made it here.
BTW… pretty sure the sugar came from Florida, but I dont know for sure.”
Anolis capito, ranivore. From http://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/bioinformatics/dfm/metas/view/45332
The pug-nosed anole, as it is known, is a pretty weird species. First is its funny-looking face, hence it’s name. Second, it is very unusual among anoles in being relatively large, yet found almost invariably near the ground–most larger anoles are found higher up in the tree. Finally, it’s long legs are ungainly and seemingly awkward. Relatively little is known about its natural history, and there is some indication that in some places, it may have become less common.
Our knowledge of natural history knowledge was expanded ever so slightly by the recent report by Mora et al. in the most recent Herpetological Review of an observation of a male eating a pygmy rain frog (Pristimantis ridens).
Ceratophora tennenttii from The Lizard Lab website
We’ve had a continuing series of posts on anole wannabees (most recent here), those lizards other than Anolis that sport dewlaps. Many of the best faux anoles are Asian agamid lizards. Some of these lizards are anole-like in other ways. For example, the fascinating Sri Lankan Ceratophora, though lacking a dewlap, parallels some anoles (well, two in particular), by sporting an appendage on its nose. Read more about these fascinating lizards at Martin Whiting’s Lizard Lab website.
The Caribbean skink radiation. Islands identified by name have (or had) mabuyine skinks; others--notably Cuba--do (or did) not.
Think Caribbean lizard diversity and you think of anoles, dwarf geckos, perhaps curly tailed lizards and whiptails. But skinks don’t generally come to mind. Heck, I almost never see skinks in the Caribbean and, anyway, their diversity is very low, with only six Caribbean species.
Previously considered conspecific
Until now. In a recently published monograph, Hedges and Conn have scrutinized the genus Mabuya, using both molecular and morphological characters, and have more than doubled the number of species, from 26 to 61, which they have broken into 16 genera (and, as a sidenote, they also split the family Scincidae into seven families). That so many species went undetected is perhaps not surprising, in that Mabuya, like most skinks, all look alike, with very few characters available to distinguish them. Moreover, a trend of species lumping has occurred historically, obscuring sometimes great differences among taxa, as illustrated in the photo to the left.
Of the 61 species, 39—in six genera—occur on Caribbean islands. Most occur on a single island, and most islands only have one species, though as many as three occur on Hispaniola and St. Thomas, and two on a number of islands. Oddly, Cuba has none. Like anoles, to which they no doubt aspire,
From http://farmvillefreak.com/farmville-animals/farmville-glitch-green-anole-farm-coins?utm_medium=twitter
I have absolutely no idea what this means, but it seems to be a big development in the Farmville world.
They’ve finally arrived in Valdosta, Georgia. Janson Jones reports from the invasion front.
Over at “Catalogue of Organisms: inordinate fondness for systematics,” an Australian site dedicated to biodiversity, anoles are the clade du jour. Maitre d’ Christopher Taylor overcomes his entomological proclivities to write an extensive and insightful overview of anole diversity. Fair dinkum!