Author: Jonathan Losos Page 38 of 130

The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco has just opened a new exhibit, The Color of Life. You can read more about it at their website. Naturally, anoles played a prominent role in the exhibit, as the panel above attests. The small print says: “Anole lizards regularly advertise their ownership of their territories. They bob their heads and extend a colorful flap of skin called a dewlap, just in case another male is watching.”

Notably, the anole gets much more prominent billing than frogs, which are relegated to a panel further back in the exhibit, as the photo to the right illustrates. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Cal Acad Herpetology Curator Dave Blackburn has just inked a deal to move to the University of Florida where, sources say, he will not only become the Curator of Herpetology at the UF Museum of Natural History, but will also switch his research program from frogs to the local anoles. A wise move, indeed, and we look forward to his further explanation in the Comments section.

Anolis maynardi–doing just fine alongside brown anoles on Little Cayman

Two days ago, Ambika Kamath posted an entry in which she observed that the green anoles in her study site in Gainesville are doing just fine, they’re just high up in the trees and harder to spot than the abundant browns. She concluded that, contrary to what many think, brown anoles are not threatening greens in Florida with extinction.

I’d like to add to Ambika’s conclusion by pointing out how browns and greens interact throughout the natural range. Both species evolved in Cuba. There members of the sagrei group coexist widely with carolinensis’s relatives. Where they co-occur, brown anoles are very abundant and are found on the ground and low in vegetation. Greens, primarily A. allisoni and A. porcatus are seemingly less abundant (population estimates are not available) and they occur on tree trunks on up into the canopy.

This mostly peaceful coexistence is repeated in other places the two species co-occur. In the Bahamas, it’s A. smaragdinus and A. sagrei, on Little Cayman, it’s A. maynardi and A. sagrei. In both cases, sagrei is apparently much more abundant, and the two species occupy different parts of the habitat.

Some time ago (possibly several million years, according to genetic data), green anoles colonized Florida from Cuba. In the absence of browns, the greens took the arboreal to increase their habitat use, a phenomenon termed “ecological release.” Then the browns arrived, thanks to us. They have moved into their ancestral niche and the ancient order has been restored. Greens have moved back up in the trees and, yes, their populations are probably now smaller, because some of the resources they were using are now taken by browns. But they’re not going extinct. Greens and browns stably coexist throughout their range. That’s what they’ll do in Florida, too, as long as all the trees aren’t cut down for shopping malls and parking lots.

Battling brown anoles. Photo by Karen Cusick

Over on Daffodil’s Photo Blog, Karen Cusick has documented a knock-down, drag out fight between two brown anoles (which we have elsewhere suggested should be re-branded as “festive” anoles). Check out the dorsal and nuchal crests!

And you’ll never guess what happened next! Something that I’ve never experienced in all my years. But I don’t know how to paste a video from Twitter into WordPress, so you’ll have to go to casa martin’s Twitter page to find out.

People pay a lot of attention to the color of a anole’s dewlap, but it’s often forgotten that the perceived color of the dewlap is not just a function of the light that reflects off of it, but also the light that at least sometimes shines through it!

These are two views of the brown anole taken minutes apart from opposite sides of the tree (the lizard was in the same spot, the photographer (me) moved.

For more on this topic, see what Manuel Leal had to say a while back on Chipojolab.

Photo by Jill Davidson-Guillen.

Jill Davidson-Guillen of Boca Raton, Florida, had an unexpected guest when she went swimming in her backyard pool last week. She said that she routinely finds curly-tailed lizards in the pool, but this was the first knight anole.

Ms. Ann-Ole thanks local herpetologists. From the Wild Amelia Facebook Page: Many thanks to herpetologists Mark Beshel (far left) and Caleb Bress (far right) of the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens for their entertaining and informative presentation on the green anole at the last of the Wild Nites this Festival year. Who knew the green anole could be sooo much fun? Thanks also to our own Ms-Ann-ole! Photo–Scott Moore

The just completed Wild Amelia Nature Festival this year featured the green anole as its mascot. AA‘s friend, anole author Karen Cusick, attended and filed this report:

“The Wild Amelia Facebook page has photos and some info on a lot of the activities–releasing sea turtles, ecotours on foot, by kayak, and by segway, learning about bats with the Bat Lady, sunrise yoga on the beach, etc., so I hope that helped.

Although the green anole was the Critter of the Year, the main things specifically related to green anoles were: the green anole presentation by the people from the zoo (along with the person in the anole suit); a couple of booths at the expo that featured some pictures and books about anoles and other lizards; the kids’ activity where they got prizes for going around answering questions about anoles; and the festival tee shirts with the anole logo. I noticed that the person in the anole costume was also on hand to congratulate two children for becoming Seashore Junior Naturalists.”

Karen also nabbed two photography awards for the photos below. Congratulations, Karen!

Award-winning photo by Karen Cusick. First place in “Other Fauna” category for non-professional photographers.

Another award-winning photo by Karen Cusick. First place in “Bird” category

Here’s yet another three-legged lizard. This is a male brown anole (Anolis sagrei) from Abaco, Bahamas  Despite missing most of its right leg (yes, the image is reversed), the little guy was fat and sassy and got around just fine. When he was let go, he even crouched down as if about to jump, before thinking better of it.

We’ve had plenty of previous postings on these three-leggers [for the full list, type “three-legged lizard” into the search bar on the right]. Always looking for more examples!

This just in from Twitter.

Introducing Anolis elcopeensis. (B) is a female; the rest are males.

In their new paper in Amphibian & Reptile Conservation, Poe and colleagues note that thirteen new species of Anolis have been described from Panama since 2007, bringing that country’s total to 44. They now raise those numbers to 15 and 45.

The first thing you need to know about Anolis elcopeensis is how to pronounce it. It’s named after the park formerly known as El Cope National Park in Panama, so it’s el-coh-pay-en-sis (the park now goes by the name Parque Nacional G. D. Omar Torrijos H.).

The second thing you need to know is that A. elcopeensis is a very close relative of A. fuscoauratus, a species widely-distributed throughout Amazonia and elsewhere in South America. Anolis elcopeensis differs from A. fuscoauratus and related species by its orange dewlap and small size (maximum: 45 mm snout-vent length). Mitochondrial DNA differences support its designation as a distinct species.

With the recognition of A. elcopeensis, that brings us to 399 Anolis species (according to a search on the Reptile Database)! Woo-hoo! And I suspect there are more soon to come. Indeed, Poe et al. suggest that A. fuscoauratus may be a complex of many cryptic species. Stay tuned!

Abstract:

We describe Anolis elcopeensis, a new species of anole lizard from low to moderate elevations of the Pacific slope of the Cordillera Central of central Panama. Anolis elcopeensis is a close relative of and resembles the Amazonian species A. fuscoauratus but differs from it and similar species mainly in body size, male dewlap color, and mitochondrial DNA. We estimate the phylogenetic position of the new species relative to all species of Anolis, and analyze variation in the mitochondrial COI gene among some populations of the new species. We also discuss the mythical presence of Anolis fuscoauratus in Panama, document the possible occurrence of A. maculiventris in Panama, and present preliminary evidence for multiple cryptic fuscoauratus-like species in eastern Panama.