Author: Rich Glor Page 1 of 13

Kevin Chovanec of East Tennessee Sate University presented one of the most surprising and important posters at the JMIH conference this summer. In his poster, Kevin provides solid fossil evidence for the oldest crown group anole. Working with samples discovered along the Gulf Coast of Florida, Kevin found abundant and well-preserved fossil remnants from anoles. Apparently this material has been around for a while, but has been neglected as attention at these localities focused on identification of mammalian fossils. Kevin has identified the remains of what appear to be at least two species of anoles in deposits that are dated as 26-28 Ma and at least one species in deposits that are 19 Ma. None of this material possesses the traits that are diagnostic for members of the carolinensis series (the only group of extant anoles that was endemic to the United States prior to a wave of recent introductions). His work suggests the existence of a multi-species anole fauna dating back to the Oligocene. A phylogenetic analysis suggests that Kevin’s fossils are members of the anole crown group, but it is not possible to place them with any more phylogenetic precision. He did note, however, that they also lack the transverse vertebral processes that are diagnostic for the β anoles (a.k.a. Norops). The work Kevin presented was part of his masters project at East Tennessee State. I can’t wait to see what other insights emerge from Kevin’s work!

JMIH 2014: Relative Contribution of Genetic and Ecological Factors to Morphological Differentiation in Island Populations of Anolis sagrei

By Rich Glor

On August 7, 2014

In New Research

Hanna Wegener, a student with Jason Kolbe at the University of Rhode Island (and an Anole Annals contributor), presented a poster at JMIH on her efforts to identify the factors that drive morphological differentiation among Anolis sagrei populations found on 16 Bahamian islands near Staniel Cay. Hanna investigated morphometric, ecological, genetic, and demographic variation among these populations and, unlike many previous studies, considered variation in both males and females. Although Hanna did find significant morphometric variation among islands and between sexes, she did not find the significant correlation between morphometric variation and habitat use reported in prior work. She also did not find a significant relationship between morphometric and genetic variation. She did, however, find that population density influences morphometric variation, with lizards living at higher population densities having significantly longer heads than those found on lower density islands. Because these lizards on densely populated islands are also more likely to exhibit evidence of injury from other anoles (e.g., loss of limbs, digits, or claws), it is possible that their longer heads may indicate a response to intra-specific competitive interactions. However, interpretation of these results remains complicated because there is not a direct connection between injury and intra-specific competition, and the lizards on densely populated islands had longer heads, but not the wider heads that would have been expected if the goal of their morphometric shift was to increase bite force. Hanna undoubtedly has many more exciting questions to investigate with her ongoing research.

JMIH 2014: The Ultrastructure of Spermatid Development within the Anole, Anolis sagrei

By Rich Glor

On August 5, 2014

In New Research

In a poster at JMIH 2014, Jonathan Clinger of Austin Peay State University found that spermiogenesis (the final step of spermatogenesis during which spermatids develop into mature spermatozoa) in Anolis sagrei is fairly similar to that previously reported in A. carolinensis.

JMIH 2014: Effects of Natural Incubation Temperatures on Development and Phenotypes of the Lizard Anolis sagrei

By Rich Glor

On August 2, 2014

In New Research

Yesterday at JMIH, Phillip Pearson reported results from work conducted with his thesis adviser at the University of Alabama, Birmingham Daniel Warner. Pearson investigated the impact of incubation environment on the brown anole (Anolis sagrei), and the effects of incubation in shaded versus open habitat and early versus late season in particular. Pearson reported several significant differences between the eggs (and resulting hatchlings) incubated under these two conditions. He specifically reported longer incubation intervals under early season and shaded conditions, smaller hatchling size under shaded conditions and better performance of hatchlings at 1 and 3 weeks for the eggs incubated under the late season regime. Performance of hatchlings was quantified as their speed and the number of times they stopped during a performance trial. This work is the latest in a string of interesting studies from the Warner Lab on the impact of incubation conditions on anoles. I was going to provide links to previous posts on Anole Annals about the Warner Lab‘s work, but there are so many that I’ll just suggest that you type “Warner” into the search box at the top of the page and enjoy for yourself.

JMIH 2014: Who’s There? The Importance of Familiarity in Discrimination of Avian Calls by the Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei)

By Rich Glor

On July 31, 2014

In All Posts

I saw two talks on brown anoles in the same session this afternoon at JMIH. The second reported on the response of brown anoles (A. sagrei) to potential avian predators. Lisa Cantwell presented results of her work with Joe Altobelli and Sandy Echternacht on the behavior of brown anoles exposed to the calls of potential avian predators in a controlled laboratory environment. Cantwell has previously reported that anoles respond more strongly to the calls of predator birds than to white noise or non-predator birds (see also prior work on A. cristatellus in response to predator and non-predatory birds). Cantwell played the calls of four bird species to captive brown anoles and monitored their reactions. The four birds in the study included one species that co-occurs with, and preys upon, A. sagrei: the American Kestrel. The other birds were species that do not co-occur with A. sagrei: the White-rumped Falcon (gotta love the ornithologists and their descriptive common names), the Shikra, and the Lesser Kestrel (this name seems kind of demeaning and should probably be changed). Cantwell tested if the anoles responded more to the predator that they or their ancestors have likely encountered in nature than to the calls of predators that they or their ancestors have likely never encountered. The types of reactions that were viewed as indicative of increased vigilance in the lizards included head shifts, eye opening, and movement around the enclosure. Although Cantwell found that the lizards responded to all of the various bird stimuli at a similar level to white noise, she hypothesized that this resulted from hyper-vigilance in a contrived laboratory environment. She also reported that the lizards responded significantly more quickly to the American Kestrel and that they remained vigilant for twice as long in response to this sympatric predator than they did in response to the non-sympatric predators.

JMIH 2014: Using Biological Invasions to Model the Fundamental Niche: A Case Study Using the Cuban Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei)

By Rich Glor

On July 31, 2014

In New Research

I caught my first anole talk at this year’s Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Chattanooga, Tennessee. James Stroud presented the results of work with Ken Feeley on modeling the niche of the brown anole (Anolis sagrei). Using data acquired from GBIF, Stroud showed that the environmental conditions experienced by brown anoles in their introduced range are outside of the environmental conditions experienced by brown anoles on Cuba. Stroud discussed how these data from the invasive range of the brown anole might be used to develop a more accurate model of this species’ fundamental niche. This is a work in progress.

Explaining Changes To Species Names In Nicholson et al. 2012

By Rich Glor

On December 4, 2013

In Ask the Experts, New Research

I’m a little embarrassed to be writing this post, but I’m still unable to figure out some of the proposed changes to anole binomials in Nicholson et al.’s (2012) taxonomic revision of Anolis. I’m a real novice with implementation of “The Code” and the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, so I’m looking for a bit of help from AA readers who are more expert than I.

I understand that some of Nicholson et al.’s proposed changes to specific epithets are necessitated by the fact that their taxonomic revision would change the gender of generic epithets (e.g., Anolis chlorocyanus would be Deiroptyx chlorocyana due to the fact that Anolis is masculine and Deiroptyx is feminine). These types of changes are demanded by The Code’s article 31.2. However, I am struggling to understand Nicholson et al.’s proposed changes to twelve binomials that – to my novice eyes – do not appear to be due strictly to changes in the gender of generic epithets (see table below). Because the authors of this paper include leading authorities on taxonomy and nomenclature, I trust that these changes are not simply the result of typographical errors.

In most cases cited in my table, Nicholson et al. add or change vowels in the correct original spellings of species epithets, where the “correct original spelling” is defined under The Code as “the spelling used in the work in which the name was established.” Based on my amateur reading of The Code, changes to correct original spellings are not permitted unless it can be shown that the original spelling was inadvertently incorrect due to a printer’s error or related mistakes unrelated to the authors lack of familiarity with Latin (ICZN, Article 32). Can somebody enlighten me about which articles in the code govern the changes in the table below?

In this table, I provide the genus to which Nicholson et al. assign each species, the gender of this genus, the exact spelling for the specific epithet used in their manuscript, the spelling of the specific epithet from the Reptile Database, the spelling of the specific epithet from the original publication (NAs indicate that I have yet to check the original citation⁴), the type of change that Nicholson et al. have proposed, and the citation of the original description. Below the table, I provide some additional details about three specific cases. Thanks in advance for your help.

Genus	Gender	Nicholson et al.	Reptile Database	Original Spelling	Change	Description Citation
Anolis	Masculine	anfilioquioi	anfiloquioi	anfiloquioi	o to io	Garrido 1980
Anolis	Masculine	maclientus	macilentus	macilentus	e to ie	Garrido and Hedges 1992
Anolis	Masculine	pumilis	pumilus	pumilus⁴	u to i	Garrido 1988
Ctenonotus	Masculine	monoensis	monensis	monensis⁴	e to oe	Stejneger 1904
Ctenonotus	Masculine	nubilis	nubilus	nubilus⁴	u to i	Garman 1887
Dactyloa	Feminine	anatolorus	anatoloros	anatoloros	o to u	Ugueto et al. 2007
Dactyloa	Feminine	euskalerrari	euskalerriari	euskalerriari	ia to a	Barros et al. 1996
Deiroptyx	Feminine	domincanus [see comments for correction and clarification]	dominicanus	dominicanus	delete i	Rieppel 1980 [Note: the original version of this post incorrectly referenced de Quieroz et al. 1998]
Norops¹	Masculine	forbesi	forbesorum	forbesi	si to sorum	Smith & Van Gelder 1955
Norops	Masculine	schiedei [see comments]	schiedii	schiedii⁴	ei to ii	Wiegmann 1834
Norops²	Masculine	williamsi	williamsii	williamsii	ii to i	Bocourt 1870
Norpos³	?	parvicirculatus	parvicirculata	parvicirculata⁴	rops to rpos and a to us	Alvarex del Toro & Smith 1956

I have a bit more information about three cases in this table.

1. Anolis forbesi is the original spelling in Smith and Van Gelder (1955), but Michels and Bauer (2004) corrected this name to Anolis forbesorum due to the fact that this species is named after more than one person. Michels and Bauer (2004) suggest that this change is a “justified emendation” under Articles 31.1.2-3 and 33.2.2 of The Code. We know that at least one author of Nicholson et al. (2012) was aware of this report because Michels and Bauer thank Jay Savage for having provided thoughtful comments on their manuscript. I’m not sure why Nicholson et al. (2012) reject this proposed change by using forbesi.

2. Nicholson et al. (2012) delete the final ‘i’ from a species originally named Anolis williamsii, in spite of the fact that article 33.4 of the ICZN states that “[t]he use of the genitive ending -i in a subsequent spelling of a species-group name that is a genitive based upon a personal name in which the correct original spelling ends with -ii, or vice versa, is deemed to be an incorrect subsequent spelling, even if the change in spelling is deliberate.” Which part of this rule or related rules in The Code permits changes from ‘ii’ to ‘i’ under some conditions?

3. Nicholson et al. (2012) change both the generic and specific epithets of Anolis parvicirculata when they refer to this species throughout their manuscript as Norpos parvicirculatus (see pages 91 and 96). Although I have included this change in my table for completeness, it is the one change that I think we must attribute to a typo, even though the misspelling of Norops as Norpos appears at least twice. The change from parvicirculatus seems likely due to the fact that this species originally, and incorrectly, had a feminine rather than a masculine specific epithet.

4. This post was revised to include original spellings confirmed by Peter Uetz, thus no more NAs in the table. Thanks Peter!

Agamids One-Upping Anoles Once Again: The Belly Dewlap

By Rich Glor

On December 1, 2013

In Natural History Observations

Photograph of Mantheyus phuwuanensis by S. Manthey from Ulrich Manthey’s book on agamids of SE Asia.

Posts about how other lizards have outdone anoles in one way or another are a common theme here on Anole Annals (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4). Keeping this trend going, I wanted to share a photograph of a remarkable species of lizard found in northeastern Thailand and Laos. This photograph of Mantheyus phuwuanensis is by S. Manthey and appears in Ulrich Manthey’s book Agamid Lizards of Southern Asia: Draconinae 2 Leiolepidinae. Very little is known about this species. The photo caption in the book notes that this is a male display. The Reptile Database has a few references, but most are not readily accessible. The one paper I could get my hands on is Ananjeva and Stuart’s (2001) paper from the Russian Journal of Herpetology that moves this species from Ptyctolaemus to its own monotypic genus based on the presence of femoral pores and other traits. Ananjeva and Stuart (2001) don’t comment on the belly dewlap, but do note that the species lives along rock streams and that it spreads its ribs and becomes dorsoventrally flattened when handled, a “behavior that is almost certainly an adaptation for fitting into rock crevices.”

Literature Cited:
Ananjeva, N. B. and B. L. Stuart. 2001. The agamid lizard Ptyctolaemus phuwuanensis Manthey and Nabhitabhata, 1991 from Thailand and Laos represents a new genus. Russian Journal of Herpetology 8:165-170.

New Look For Anole Annals

By Rich Glor

On November 30, 2013

In All Posts

We were long overdue for a little make-over here at Anole Annals, so we just updated our WordPress theme. We’re also going to be adding some new header images derived from this year’s photo contest. We will include a credit to the copyright holder on each image, but please let us know if you’d prefer not to see your image in our header. We hope you enjoy the new look and please let us know if you notice any problems.

Help Identify a Mystery Lizard

By Rich Glor

On November 10, 2013

In Anole Annals Trivia, Anole Photographs, Ask the Experts

We found the lizard depicted above in the herpetological collection at the University of Kansas. We have no information about where it is from or who collected it. Can anybody help us identify what species it is?