Doing a little holiday shopping yesterday at Barnes & Noble and came across Snakes and Reptiles: The Scariest Cold-Blooded Creatures on Earth on the bargain table. The drawings are charming and the material seems pretty factual (from a quick skim), but most importantly, an anole was included! At only $9.98, it seemed like a bargain, and you can get it for even less at Barnes & Noble’s website. Looks like a good present for young herpetologists or even older ones.
Author: Jonathan Losos Page 109 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.
A brown anole from Lanai. Photo from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/04/28/725559/-Dove-Porn,-Avian-Conflict-and-Lanai-Dragons-A-Photo-Diary
Colonizer extraordinaire A. sagrei has been known from the Hawaiian islands since 1980 and has become established on not only Oahu, where it first appeared, but also on Kauai and Maui. Now Mautz and Shaffer report in the December, 2011 issue of Herpetological Review that it has become established in several locations on the Big Island (Hawaii).
First detected in the lush plantings of several resorts, Mautz and Shaffer figured plant nurseries were probably the culprit for their spread, as they have been elsewhere. When they visited a local garden store, sure enough, the brown anoles were there in abundance.
Indeed, where the brown anoles were found, which was not everywhere, they clearly were well-established. At one site, two observers found 26 brownies in a 1 hour, 45 minute visit, whereas at another site in only 47 minutes, 62 adult and juvenile browns were seen.
Mautz and Shaffer conclude: “Given the current limited distribution of A. sagrei on Hawaii Island, we strongly recommend that immediate action be taken to eradicate it before it can spread further.” But I’d wager that it’s too late. Brown anoles breed like rabbits and are wilier than coyotes–I’d predict that nothing less than a scorched earth policy would be able to eradicate them.
The gold dust gecko in Hawaii. Photo from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3060/ 2995054890_c987b2294c.jpg
Mautz and Shaffer’s article raises another interesting point about the Hawaiian herpetofauna.
Anolis equestris with a radio transmitter attached. Photo courtesy Paul Richards.
Knight anoles, Anolis equestris, are truly the king of anoles. The largest anole species*–with a total length approaching two feet–and a grotesquely handsome and imposing head, these lizards are surely the reigning emperor of anoles.
Little, however, is known about the natural history of these species, other than they will eat anything they can get their jaws on. Introduced into Florida many years ago, Miami populations of knight anoles would seem to be ripe for study, but little work has been published.
Nicholson and Richards have taken a step in filling this void, reporting the results of a year-long radio-tracking study conducted on the grounds of the University of Miami. The authors developed a backpack mounted radio transmitter that they strapped onto the back of knight anoles, and then located them over the course of many months. The units were small (6 g or less) and didn’t seem to hinder the lizards, which were seen mating and engaging in other activities while backpack-clad.
The primary focus of the paper is home range of these lizards, and they report several results. First, knight anoles have a large home range, on average, of about 650 square meters. This result is not surprising, as home range size seems to be strongly correlated with body size among the 15 anole species for which data are available, and the two other large anoles have comparably large ranges.
More surprising is that there is little difference in the size of home ranges of males and females, unlike what is seen in many other anole species, in which male home range is larger, often substantially. Nicholson and Richards attribute this to the arboreality of this species, although other arboreal species, albeit smaller, have also been studied with variable results. I wonder, too, whether gender differences in home range size might correlate with degree of sexual size dimorphism. Certainly, several of the species with low dimorphism had female ranges larger than those of males.
The authors also found substantial overlap in territories of individuals, both within and between sexes, an intriguing finding that suggests that detailed studies of behavior of this species–of which almost nothing is known–would be very interesting. More generally, the biology of the knight anole is mostly a blank slate. These lizards are reasonably common in Miami, and there is great work to be done. Particularly interesting would be the community effects of this species–how does its presence affect the other anole species with which it occurs?
*The largest anole species is actually a matter of dispute, as it may be one of the knight anole’s sibling species, such as A. luteogularis. In all, the equestris species complex is comprised of six species, five of which are very large.
Knight anoles can bite hard and Kirsten Nicholson values her hands. This is how the transmitter’s are placed on the lizard. Photo courtesy Paul Richards.
Kirsten E. Nicholson and Paul M. Richards (2011). Home-range size and overlap within an introduced
population of the Cuban Knight Anole, Anolis
equestris (Squamata: Iguanidae) Phyllomedusa, 10 (1), 65-73
A glorious event–the 100,000th viewing of an Anole Annals page—is about to occur. In fact, the very next page to be viewed, perhaps the first person to read these words. I should add that this is the result of 59,425 unique viewing sessions. And almost all of this viewage has occurred in the past year. Whomever’s next, let us know who you are so your name can be inscribed in the AA Hall of Fame.
Check out what Janson Jones has to say about the largest anole, as well as a cool video, here.
The cavalcade of new anole species continues with Gunter Köhler’s description of a new species, related to A. altae, from Costa Rica. The last few years have seen a steady progression of new species descriptions, almost all from Central and South America. Anolis must be pushing 400 species by now. Anyone got an up-to-date total?
And who’s described all these species? Rich Glor is in the midst of a five-part series identifying the big guns in Caribbean island species descriptions, but I reckon the mainlanders have been described by a very different crowd. Certainly in recent times Köhler, Poe and others must be up there, but it would be interesting to see who historically has been the most prolific. Perhaps a job for someone from Team Norops?
In any case, down to the nitty-gritty. What used to be known as A. altae has been divided now into seven allopatrically-distributed species at high elevations in Costa Rica.
Polymorphism in dorsal patterns of female Anolis humilis. Color version of photo in Parmelaere et al., Biol. J. Linn. Soc. (2001), courtesy E. Parmelaere.
The topic of female dorsal pattern polymorphism has been broached several times in Anole Annals posts. Such polymorphism occurs in some species and not others; a comprehensive survey by Paemelaere et al. demonstrated that it was much more common in mainland anoles than in island species, and in some clades more than in others.
But the bigger question is: does dorsal pattern matter to the ladies?
To celebrate Anole Annals‘ move to a new platform (https://www.anoleannals.org/), yesterday we announced a photography competition–winning photographs will be put into the rotation of header images displayed at the banner at the top of the page. And now we add a sweetener to the pot. The Grand Prize winner will receive a copy of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation personally signed, with great embellishment and profuse gratitude, by the author himself. Surely a valued keepsake for years to come!
In order to be considered, an image must be precisely 1000 pixels wide by 288 pixels high. We’ll credit you as photographer wherever possible, but ask that images not include any text or watermarks. You can submit your images using our blog’s new ability to easily add images to a comment; just click the “Choose File” link beneath the comment box and navigate to your JPEG photo. One way to do this is to use Photoshop to resize individual images. From the Image Menu: go to “Image Size” then change the width to 1000 px.
Get your photos in now. Deadline some time soon, once we have enough good entries. Good luck! May the best photographer win!
In a recent post, Alison Devan reported the presence of the brown anole, A. sagrei, in Savannah, GA. That prompted AA to inquire on the HerpGuide Facebook page where else the brown anole has been seen in the southeastern U.S., other than Florida and Louisiana. You can see for yourself the responses above, to which I can add a lawyer’s office in Boston and a plane out of Denver. Anyone else seen sagrei getting about? Any predictions how far it’ll spread (see this recent post for a distribution map of sagrei in the southeast today)?
By the way, the HerpGuide FB page is a place for people to post herp photos to be identified, as well as other herp related items. Worth joining.
Read up on the exciting experimental population biology studies of Dan Warner and Alexis Harrison here.