Author: Jonathan Losos Page 117 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 Non-Anole Grass-Bush Ecomorph?

By Jonathan Losos

On July 15, 2011

In Anoles in Commerce

I have long thought that the Asian lacertid lizard, Takydromus sexlineatus, is the best example of a non-anole species that corresponds to one of the anole ecomorphs. Extraordinarily long in tail, slender in body, light brown in color with a light-colored lateral stripe, this grass-dwelling lizard seems a dead ringer to a grass-bush ecomorph. This, of course, leads to many questions, not least of which is: if Takydromus somehow were juxtaposed with some ecomorphs, how would they interact? Now we know the answer.

They’d ignore each other. Or at least, they’d do so within the confines of a small
Petsmart vivarium where they are commonly sold.

Is An Anole Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

By Jonathan Losos

On July 13, 2011

In New Research

Manuel Leal and Brian Powell have just published a paper in Biology Letters demonstrating that lizards are smart. Before getting to the details, though—here’s the important point: check out the videos! They’re pretty amazing (here, scroll down and click on the videos).

Here’s the story: working with the Puerto Rican trunk-crown anole, A. evermanni, Leal and Powell presented lizards with an experimental apparatus in their home cages with two wells, in one of which was a dead phoenix worm (whatever that is). Next to the well with the worm was a little round disc similar to a poker chip. The lizards learned to go to the well and find and eat the worms. Then the experimenters placed the chip halfway over the well. Again, no problem.

Now comes the cool part. The experimenters completely covered the well containing the worm with a blue chip. Remember, these are Anolis lizards that usually find their prey by looking for movement—they don’t go digging around in the underbrush. Still, four out of the six lizards figured out how to get the mealworm: two of them bit the chip and removed it from covering the well, while two others figured out how to use their snouts as a lever to flip the chip off the well. This is pure problem-solving, and it uses novel behaviors, rather than simply transferring a natural behavior to a new context! And the two lizards that failed to get the worm came up with their own solution, hitting the center of the chip with their snout—but this was ineffective in dislodging the chip.

Once the lizards had learned to find the worm under the chip, the experimenters then conducted a discrimination trial, giving the choice of a blue chip and a yellow chip. Without error, the lizards always went to the blue chip; subsequently, they were presented a blue chip versus a blue-and-yellow chip, and they still had no problem.

Pretty amazing for a lizard, if you ask me, but it gets even better.

Anoles of the Florida Keys

By Jonathan Losos

On July 10, 2011

In Introduced Anoles, Natural History Observations

Not an anole, but plays one on TV. Photo from Dust Tracks on the Web (http://dusttracks.com/)

Janson Jones is at it again. Having just driven about as cross-continent as you can get, from Alaska to the Florida Keys, he is now waxing eloquent on the lizards of that delightful island string. Today’s post is about introduced green iguanas, which apparently are everywhere and spreading, but yesterday he posted twice, on brown anoles (A. sagrei) and bark anoles (A. distichus) , with some keen observations on interactions between the two. Most notably, he’s noticed on multiple occasions that the larger browns chase off the the daintier barks.

postscript: Just as I hit the “post” button, Jones put up another of his own, with further observations on bark anoles and outlining what would make an excellent Ph.D. dissertation project. Plus, this intriguing observation:

“…the iPad of anoles in the Florida Keys. They’re right on the edge, living in the third space, transitory ground between the browns on the ground and the greens in the trees. They’re not iPhones, but they’re not desktops either. Right in the middle — and perhaps drawing business from both sides?”

Bark anole, A. distichus, from Dust Tracks on the Web

Anole Origami in the New York Times

By Jonathan Losos

On July 9, 2011

In Anole Art, Literature, and Humor, Anoles and Anolologists in the News

Check it out. Read the backstory here.

Incoming: Comparative Genomicists Requesting Anole Material

By Jonathan Losos

On July 8, 2011

In Research Methods

In the last two days, I have received email requests from researchers studying various aspects of anole genomics, one asking for whole genomic DNA from A. carolinensis and the other for material derived from A. carolinensis embryos. These particular researchers are interested in, respectively, promoter elements in opsin genes and cerebral cortex development in the brain, with a particular interest in comparing brain transcriptomes from different species. I have received a number of similar requests in the last few months.

With the sequencing of the A. carolinensis, the first reptile to be sequenced, anoles are now on the radar screen of the comparative genomics community. This is a great thing both for understanding how genomes evolve in general, but also for how anoles evolve specifically. No doubt, this is the dawn of an exciting age in anole biology.

But these requests will no doubt continue to roll in, probably in increasing numbers. And, unlike many “model” organisms, there are not (at least not yet) anole stock centers or other resources to get the material needed for all kinds of studies. Providing genomic DNA is a trivial enterprise, and those of us doing relevant work should probably expect and be prepared for requests like these. But producing embryos for all kinds of developmental/genetic questions is another matter. There will be a need for material from anoles–initially A. carolinensis, but eventually others–at all life stages. We probably can’t expect genomicists to set up their own facilities to produce eggs and offspring (though maybe I don’t give them enough credit). My guess is that in the short term, it will fall on the anole community to provide this material.

Glowing Anole Dewlaps

By Jonathan Losos

On July 6, 2011

In Natural History Observations

Photo by Manuel Leal from chipojolab.blogspot.com

Read all about them here.

Anolis Ecomorph Visualization App

By Jonathan Losos

On July 6, 2011

In Education and Anoles

CAnolis is a freely downloadable visualization app for learning about Caribbean anole evolution, built using the Processing programming language. Its main purpose is to help teachers of evolution explain convergence and adaptive radiation to high school
and college students. It does so by allowing viewers to click on an island and see where on the phylogeny species in different ecomorphs occur.

Fernando Racimo, creator of the App, explains how it came to be: “The inspiration for the program came after taking a Herpetology class at Harvard, but I didn’t have the means to create it until a friend introduced me to a visually-oriented Java-based programming
language called Processing. I obtained the list of anoles and the clade phylogeny from Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, while the ecomorph drawings came from a classroom exercise available at the University of California Museum of Paleontology’s website and mentioned earlier in the Anole Annals. My objective was to link island distribution,
phylogenetic placement and ecological adaptation into a single interactive program that made it easy for users to understand how different species of anoles evolved in each island. Jonathan Losos, Mickey Eagleson and Sami Majadla kindly provided advice on how best to display the information.”

The App can be downloaded here:

CAnolis for Mac: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17593686/CAnolis%20for%20Mac.zip

CAnolis for Windows: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17593686/CAnolis%20for%20Windows.zip

Please email fernandoracimo@gmail.com if you have any comments or suggestions for improvements.

Anole Harlequin Romance

By Jonathan Losos

On July 5, 2011

In Classics from the Literature

From Shufeldt, 1883.

From Danielle Steel’s latest romance novel:

“We have not far to go, indeed, to find our bi-colored masquerader; see the emerald-clad scamp as he eyes you from the brawny limb of the pecan, under which you stand. But what is he up to! You quietly watch him, and his employment seems to be of such a nature that he soon completely ignores you, and proceeds with it at all risks, and at all costs. The mystery is soon solved, and we can readily appreciate this agitation, this bowing and strutting, and all manner of quaint motions, as if the very last drop of his quaint lacertilian blood was on fire—for coyishly, and with all due deference, reclines before his lordship, his chosen mate, exerting all her chameleonic powers to hide her blushes by vain endeavors to match the colored pattern at her command. He can withstand her charms no longer, and for the moment, laying aside all dignity, and the object of his affections not unwillingly submitting, in the next instant finds herself in the passionate embraces of her lord, who, to make sure that he has actually won his coveted prize, winds about her lithe form, perhaps in some mystic love-knot, his entire caudal extremity, and blinds her eyes, first on one side and then on the other, by extension of the flaming ornament at his throat.”

Ok, you can’t actually find this on the bookstand at the local grocery store. Rather, it’s from a paper by a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, R.W. Shufeldt, published in the American Naturalist in 1883. Romantic interludes notwithstanding, the paper presents a remarkably accurate and detailed report of the natural history of A. carolinensis (in which he referred to the green anole as the American chameleon, Anolis principalis).

Anole Talks and Posters at the 2011 Herp Meetings

By Jonathan Losos

On July 3, 2011

In New Research

Lots of anole action at the herp meetings starting on Wednesday in Minneapolis. Listed below are the talks and posters found by searching for “anol” in the online program abstract. If you know of others, please let us know. And…if you’re going to attend the meetings, how about posting on the talks and posters, so those of us not in the northlands can stay up to speed? Abstracts can be found by going here (I just read through them–some great stuff!).

Talks (NOTE: Gunderson’s talk on thermal ecology of A. cristatellus was originally scheduled for Saturday, but has just been rescheduled for Friday at 2:30 in Conrad B & C)

Friday, 2:30 pm: Alex Gunderson. Geographic Variation in the Thermal Ecology and Physiology of Anolis cristatellus and its Implications in a Changing World

Saturday, 2 pm: Rich Glor. Phylogenetics and Diversification of Anolis Lizards

Sunday, 8:45 am: A. Reedy. Maternal Nest-site Choice in the Lizard Anolis sagrei: A Unique Research-based Educational Model for Youth at an Urban High School

Sunday, 2:45 pm: J. Deitloff. Hemipenes vs. Dewlaps: Which Morphological Characters Can be Used to Delineate Species in Anoles?

Sunday, 2:45 pm: H. Waddle. Brown Anole Presence Reduces Occupancy of Green Anoles in Southern Florida Natural Areas

Posters:

Saturday, Poster 14: J. Phillips. Evolutionary and Biogeographic Relationships Among Species of the Anolis humilis Complex

Saturday, Poster 15: J. Davis. A phylogenetic analysis of the Anolis pentaprion Species Group

Saturday, Poster 16: J. Gubler. Investigation of the Evolutionary Relationships Among Species of the Anolis limifrons Complex

Saturday, Poster 75: A. Geneva. A Multi-locus Molecular Phylogeny of Distichoid Anoles

Saturday, Poster 76. S. Lambert. Molecular Systematics of Hispaniolan Crown-giant Anoles

Sunday, Poster 21: M. Moody. Egg Environments have Large Effects on Embryonic Development, but have Minimal Consequences for Fitness-Related Phenotypes in a Lizard (Anolis sagrei)

Sunday, Poster 35: M. Zhuang. Comparative Gliding Performance of Anolis carolinensis and Anolis sagrei

Sunday, Poster 44: P. Cupp. Responses of ground skinks, Scincella lateralis, and Green anoles, Anolis carolinensis, to Chemical Deposits of Eastern Milk Snakes, Lampropeltis triangulum

Sagrei – Cristatellus Interactions in Miami

By Jonathan Losos

On July 1, 2011

In Introduced Anoles, Notes from the Field

Anolis cristatellus in Miami. Photo by Melissa Losos

In his spare time, photographer and film-maker extraordinaire Neil Losin doubles as a graduate student studying the ecological interactions between introduced trunk-ground anoles A. sagrei and A. cristatellus in Miami. He’s just begun his third field season, and you can read all about it here.