
Anolis carpenteri. Photo from http://ctaudubon.blogspot.com/2011/04/young-researchers-shine-during-costa_05.html
We notched the double anole hat trick in the most unexpected manner last night, as a female of that rarely seen species, A. carpenteri, presented itself sleeping at chest level on an isolated plant in the clearing. With a day yet to go, hope springs eternal that a resplendent green A. biporcatus will make it a lucky seven at La Selva.
News flash—breakfast! Just learned that last night, the team headed for a ditch filled with caimans found an A. biporcatus sleeping on a branch above the trail. Seven anole species in two days!
Seven anole species at one site (eight if we include the unseen A. pentaprion). Certainly, a lot of anole diversity, but not unheard of in any way. In fact, such diversity occurs regularly on the Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto. Yet, the anole ensemble here differs greatly from what we would see in a diverse Caribbean community. All species-rich assemblages in the Caribbean are extremely similar, composed primarily of the different ecomorph types. Usually, such a location would have very common trunk-ground and trunk-crown anoles, and then representatives of three or all four of the remaining ecomorph types. The remaining species would either be some of the “unique” habitat specialist types which occur only on one island, such as the rock wall specialist A.bartschi on Cuba or members of the Chamaelolis clade; or they would include multiple members of the same ecomorph type, such as several trunk-ground anoles that use different thermal microhabitats.
By contrast, the La Selva Eight bears little similarity to these assemblages.