When I hear or read Salmonella, I think of my mom explaining to my 7-year-old self why I shouldn’t eat raw chicken (to be clear, I never expressed interest in doing this, but lesson learned nonetheless). According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most instances of Salmonella bacteria making people sick do in fact result from transmission by food. But Salmonella infection can come from other sources, including direct contact with living animals, particularly reptiles (including birds which, in case you haven’t heard, are reptiles). So I was only a little surprised when I came across a recent paper in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Science, based in Japan, documenting the prevalence of Salmonella in the green anole, Anolis carolinensis, on Okinawa Island, Japan.
Of the 706 green anoles from Okinawa Island whose intestinal contents were analyzed for Salmonella presence between 2009 and 2014, only 2.1% tested positive. That number is low compared with published results for green anole populations in Florida (7.5%), Chichi Island in Japan (34.2% – this study was highlighted here on Anole Annals when it came out in 2013), and Guam (76.2%). I’m struck by how much these percentages vary. Green anoles have been in Florida for millions of years, whereas populations in the other locations have only been established for tens of years. The authors hypothesize that infection rate in recently introduced populations should correlate with how long the population has been established. Testing this hypothesis will require data from more populations. It also appears that we know little about whether anoles are affected by carrying Salmonella, although a quick search did reveal this study involving the brown anole, Anolis sagrei.
All told, we have a lot to learn about anoles and Salmonella. In the meantime, please protect yourself from Salmonella infection by following basic food safety precautions: refrigerate foods adequately, wash fruits and vegetables and cook meat and eggs thoroughly, and clean potentially contaminated cookware and utensils with soap and water. Most importantly, WASH YOUR HANDS, although I assume that like me, you are already doing this approximately a hundred times per day (for those of you reading this in the future, I’m not a weirdo. We’re in the middle of a pandemic).
For those who may be interested, green anoles became established in and around Japan several decades ago and are considered an ecologically disruptive pest. If you want to read more, here are links to some old Anole Annals posts on various topics related to the region’s green anoles: trapping efforts, population age structure, range expansion. Enjoy!
Hot off the press — the latest anole journal cover!In this issue of Nature Ecology & Evolution, Shane Campbell-Staton and I led a team of researchers to explore the effects of urban heat islands on anoles. We found that not only can urban Anolis cristatellus tolerate higher temperatures than their forest counterparts, but also identified genomic regions associated with divergent thermal tolerance. Check out a summary of this work at the urban evolution blog I co-edit, Life in the City: Anoles Adapt to Beat the Urban Heat.
The days of self-isolation and quarantine are dragging on as COVID-19 continues its worldwide rampage. We may all be a little less productive than we had thought we would be as we tend to unruly kids and rogue parents who won’t stay indoors. Here at Anole Annals, we’ve scoured our past posts and brainstormed some of our favorite learn-at-home resources to help keep you entertained at home while learning about your favorite lizards! Whether you’re a seasoned researcher looking for a break, a teacher in search of remote learning activities, or a parent at home with kids in need of educational activities, we hope you find the following resources useful.
HHMI produced several fantastic videos and learning modules perfect for learning about anoles, ecology, and evolution in the classroom and at home! Each of the activities also comes with handy educator materials to make sure your newly homeschooled students gets the most out of these resources.
The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree — This short video (~17 minutes) covers the concepts of adaptation, islands as natural laboratories, speciation, and convergent evolution. Pair the video with the associated interactive activities and discussion prompts to get the most out of this resource. Start with this one, since all of the other activities produced by HHMI relate back to the concepts covered here.
Lizard Evolution Virtual Lab — This all inclusive four part learning module involves videos and an interactive web application (also available for IOS) to learn about ecomorphs, phylogenies, experimental data, and dewlaps. Students will collect and analyze data as they learn about the scientific process and anole themed concepts. The modules also have embedded mini quizzes to make sure your student is understanding the information, and educator materials to help you guide your students as they learn.
The Lone Anole — This activity is a short conversation starter based on a photo of the Plymouth anole (Anolis lividus) to use with students to discuss ideas of adaptation and natural selection.
One of the sample cards for students to “collect data” from in the HHMI selection by predation activity.
How Lizards Find Their Way Home — This short video (8 minutes) is based on the research of Manuel Leal. Watch a real scientist design an experiment to answer a question and carry out fieldwork radio tracking lizards! Produced by Day’s Edge Productions.
Lizards in Hurricanes — Another short activity based on a study by Donihue et al. (2018): Hurricane-induced selection on the morphology of an island lizard. Students are asked to review a figure from the paper and discuss how hurricanes and other extreme weather events can lead to morphological change, and how scientists can experimentally investigate these changes.
Using DNA to Explore Lizard Phylogeny — In this interactive activity students learn how to build a phylogeny based on common traits and then by using DNA sequences to explore the concept of convergent evolution. As with the other activities, everything you need to do this experiment at home is provided digitally.
They do! Rodríguez-Cabrera and colleagues report in the latest issue of Euscorpius: Occasional Papers in Scorpiology on predation on scorpions in Cuba. In addition to the A. homolechis and A. sagrei shown above (left and right, respectively), A. equestris was also observed eating a scorpion.
Recently, a friend found the anole pictured above in Mompiche, Ecuador. As of now, the identity of this anole remains unknown.
The closest matches I could find were Anolis bombiceps and A. lyra, but there were problems with both of those species. Anolis bombiceps lacks a spot on the dewlap, and is not known to occur as far west as Mompiche.On the other hand, Anolis lyra seemingly has either a red or white dewlap without any blue coloration. This individual seems to match up perfectly with A. lyra in all other regards.
This may simply be an individual displaying unusual dewlap coloration, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts (Editor’s note: AA‘s comment function is broken, so please use the form below).
Thanks in advance!
EDITOR’S UPDATE: SEVERAL READERS WROTE BELLA TO SAY THAT THIS IS A FEMALE A. LYRA. NOTE THE DIFFERENCE IN COLOR OF THE DEWLAP IN BELLA’S PHOTOS AND THE ONES IN A PREVIOUS POST ON ANOLE DEWLAP SEXUAL DICHROMATISM.
Recently, my lab has been excited to begin work on some of the morphological, behavioral, and physiological aspects of so-called “underwater breathing” in semi-aquatic anoles. Given the current circumstances, I need to ask for a little help from the anolologist community. My collaborators and I are studying the microstructure of semi-aquatic anole skin – what about the skin allows a bubble to stick and move around the way it does?
We are seeking shed anole skin samples to compare with Anolis aquaticus. Any anole species or sex or any size sample will do. Really, a bit of shed skin that is even 1 cm long from a single individual would be a “big” sample and enormously helpful!
If anyone out there keeps anoles of any species in lab or at home and would be willing to drop a fragment of shed skin into an envelope for me, it would go a long way to helping us keep this project moving despite the moratorium on fieldwork.
If you are able to help, you can message me below. Thank you all in advance!
I could have sworn we had a post on this some years ago, but can find no record of it in the Annals. So, just to get up to speed, Death in Paradise is a British detective show set on the island of Guadeloupe (Update, April 2021: the island is Saint Marie, a fictitious island in the vicinity of Guadeloupe and Martinique). A recurring character is Harry, who looks more-or-less like an anole. The show is set in Guadeloupe, hence the reasonable supposition that he is an A. marmoratus, as some articles explicitly state.
Speaking of articles, this post is prompted by a number of recent press articles highlighting Harry, including this piece in The Sun and another in the Daily Express. And one more from earlier this year. You may not be surprised to learn that Harry is not played by a real saurian actor, but rather is the result of CGI. The Sun‘s piece provides more detail, including the embedded video.
More favorite details on our favorite TV character can be found on his Wiki Fandom page.
On march 19, 2013, Jonathan Losos wrote about Anolis heterodermus in this blog, on a post called “Adventures with Phenacosaurus”: “…I have to comment on the little-studied thermal biology of this species. The weather when we were there was usually overcast with the sun occasionally bursting out. Temperatures were usually in the 16-20̊ range. And the lizards were active! Moreover, we were at only about 2600 meters, but I have heard reports of them being found as high as 4000 meters! Clearly, a study on the thermal biology of this species would be fascinating!” One year later, I began to investigate this topic on A. heterodermus.
All my life I’ve loved reptiles, but only recently as part of my undergraduate studies in biology in the National University of Colombia, have I started in the herpetological world with Drs. Adriana Jerez and Martha Calderón. I was particularly intrigued by the thermal biology of these organisms. Soon I discovered that I’ve always lived in a high-elevation, cold city, Bogotá, in a neotropical country, Colombia, making the reptile species around me, which are ironically unknown, perfect models for questions about thermoregulation in reptiles.
A female Anolis heterodermus
As I tried to decide which of these species would be my model for my undergraduate thesis, I realized that my professors and some of my colleagues had already started to study some of the high-elevation species, like the high-Andean snake Atractus crassicaudatus, the microteiid Anadia bogotensis, and the collared tropidurids Stenocercus trachycephalus and S. lache. I realize now that my choice of the high-Andean lizard Anolis heterodermus for my study was one of the best decisions of my life as a biologist.
Between 2014 and 2015, I carried out my undergraduate thesis research under the direction of Dr. Martha Calderón on thermoregulation of Anolis heterodermus in Tabio, a town at 2650 m asl, close to Bogotá, Colombia. During my research, Martha, my colleagues and I had the opportunity to know Dr. Barry Sinervo and his group, who helped us with equipment and suggestions for our projects. Finally, in 2017, after my thesis was approved and I obtained my biology university degree, Martha and I published my first article.
Measuring an individual of Anolis heterodermus with calipers
Anolis heterodermus lives in a cold, low-quality thermal habitat that gets worse in wet seasons. Surprisingly, during the wet season, Anolis heterodermus copes succesfully with this seasonal variation and adjusts behaviorally to thermoregulate more actively to compensate for the reduction in the thermal quality of the habitat. In this way, these lizards match achieve their preferred temperatures just as in dry season. This match also occurs mostly at midday, particularly in sunny perch sites, confirmed by operative temperature data, which suggests that A. heterodermus is a heliothermic species. Additionally, sexes and ages are not different in their thermal traits, such as body and preference temperatures.
Study site: Tygüa Magüe Ecopark, Tabio, Colombia, at 2650 m asl.
But the most incredible trait of this species is its capacity to take advantage of the few sunny hours and sunny microhabitats to thermoregulate, taking into account that the tropical high-elevation ecosystems like the high-andean shrubs and forest, and subparamo and paramo not always are cold environments, but have large thermal fluctuation during the day too, which is reflected in the wide range of body (16.6-31.9°C) and preferred (19.1-30.2°C) temperatures. Definitely Anolis heterodermus is a very plastic thermoregulating species, as it has to be, because it is the anole species found at the highest altitude known.
We are looking for a field assistant to help us conduct behavioural research on Anolis sagrei on small dredge-spoil islands near Ft. Pierce, FL, from April 22 to May 21. Daily activities include searching for and observing marked lizards as well as collecting habitat data. We will work long hours on most days (beginning 7-8am). Applicants should be prepared for hot and humid work conditions as well as travel on a small boat. Applicants must be comfortable handling lizards and using binoculars and should be adaptable to changing plans. All expenses (airfare, food, lodging) will be covered and a stipend will be provided.
If interested, please contact Ambika Kamath: ambikamath@gmail.com and Nick Herrmann: nicholas.carl.herrmann@gmail.com with a
brief letter describing why you are interested in this position and any relevant research experience along with your CV and the names and contact information of a professional reference whom we may contact by email. We will review applications as they arrive until the position is filled.
Stan Rand’s Super 8 Film from the 1972 Malpelo Expedition
Kevin de Queiroz
Research Zoologist and Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
This film was made by Austin Stanley Rand (1932–2005), a biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) (1964–1997), during a six-day expedition to Malpelo Island, a small (1.2 km2), remote, oceanic island located some 500 km west of the Colombian mainland, in late February and early March of 1972. The Expedition involved 17 scientists from STRI, the republics of Colombia and Panamá, and several US universities, as well as the assistance of the United States Navy. The scientific findings of the Expedition were published in the series Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology (Number 176) in 1975, in a volume edited by Jeffrey B. Graham (1941–2011), one of the STRI biologists who participated in the Expedition. The volume contains 14 articles, five of which are on the lizards of Malpelo, including three on the endemic Anolisagassizi, two on the endemic Diploglossus millepunctatus (one of which is also on A. agassizi), and one describing a new endemic species of leaf-toed geckos, Phyllodactylus transversalis. As a result of prompting from George Gorman, who participated in the Expedition, and Jonathan Losos, I obtained a digital copy of the film from the Smithsonian Archives with the help of Archivist Ellen Alers. The film is a little under 11 minutes long and there is no audio. The notes about the contents of the film below were prepared mostly from information in the Malpelo Expedition Volume, with some additions based on web searches and input from George Gorman. Literature citations are for articles in the Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology Malpelo Expedition Volume unless otherwise indicated. Thanks to George Gorman and Ross Kiester for comments on an earlier version.
0:10: Adult male Anolis agassizi, Malpelo or Agassiz’s Anole. The species was named by Smithsonian Zoologist Leonard Stejneger in 1900 after Alexander Agassiz, leader of an 1891 Expedition aboard the USS Albatross that visited Malpelo and collected the first specimens.
0:20: Map showing the location of Malpelo Island (ca. 500 km west of mainland Colombia).
0:29: The USS York County (US Navy). This De Soto County-class Tank Landing Ship transported the Expedition participants from Panama to Malpelo and back.
0:32: Ship deck (the ship was decommissioned later that same year, 1972).
0:40: Crew members of the USS York (sweeping the deck).
0:46: A. Ross Kiester (Ph.D. 1975, Harvard University, Advisor: Ernest E. Williams; STRI Predoctoral Fellow, 1970–1971). Kiester authored a paper in the Malpelo Expedition Volume on the natural history of the endemic anguid lizard species Diploglossus millepunctatus.
0:53: George C. Gorman (Ph.D. 1968, Harvard University, Advisor: E. E. Williams; UCLA professor at the time of the Expedition) lying on deck. Gorman co-authored three articles in the Malpelo Expedition Volume, including one on the natural history, behavior and ecology of Anolis agassizi and another on the chromosomes of Anolis agassizi and Diploglossus millepunctatus.
1:00: Several Anolis agassizi licking a cut orange. The anoles are very abundant on the island. In the Malpelo Expedition Volume, Rand et al. (1975) estimated the population density to be 1 anole/5-10 square meters and a total population of at least 100,000 anoles on the small island.
1:11: Malpelo Island from the southeast (?).
1:20: Part of island closer up. The sides are very steep and landing is difficult.
1:27: Close-up of rock (island surface). The island is composed primarily of igneous rock and is of volcanic origin. Very few large (vascular) plants occur there, though several species of mosses and lichens are present.
1:33: Aerial view of island (from the northwest). The Expedition produced a new map of the island (see Kiester and Hoffman, 1975).
1:39: Map showing the topography of the ocean floor. Malpelo is part of Malpelo Ridge and is the only island on that ridge.
1:45: Nazca Booby (Sula granti). This is most abundant breeding bird species on Malpelo (Pitman et al., 1995, The marine birds of Malpelo Island, Colombia. Colonial Waterbirds 18:113–119, wherein it is called Sula dactylatra). The population was estimated by Pitman et al. (1995) to be 24,000 individuals. Referred to in the Malpelo Expedition Volume as Masked or Blue-faced Boobies, Sula dactylatra granti.
1:50: Seabirds flying. Other bird species known from Malpelo include Red-billed Tropicbirds, Red-footed Boobies, Black and Brown Noddies, White Terns, and Great and Magnificent Frigatebirds (Pitman et al., 1995).
2:00: Diploglossus millepunctatus, a Dotted or Malpelo Galliwasp. This is an anguid lizard species endemic to Malpelo.
2:02: Preserved specimens of Phyllodactylus transversalis, Malpelo Leaf-toed Geckos. This was a new species discovered on the Malpelo Expedition and described in the Malpelo Expedition Volume by Raymond B. Huey (Ph.D. 1976; Harvard University, Advisor: Ernest E. Williams).
2:06: This shot seems to show the abundance of anoles in a small area. Anolis agassizi was found not to be territorial, unlike most of its close relatives, and to exhibit relatively little intraspecific aggression.
2:21: Anole on a camera illustrating tameness and/or curiosity. Rand et al. reported that they often approached observers and unusual objects.
2:24: Clipboard with a map of Malpelo showing the routes taken by the exploration party (compare with Figure 4 in Kiester and Hoffman, 1975).
2:26: Anoles in a scuffle (chase and display).
2:32: Anoles on equipment (again showing abundance and curiosity).
2:37: Anoles at orange, licking, numerous individuals. Oranges were put out after the researchers noticed that the anoles seemed attracted to the color orange (Kodak film package, cap of suntan lotion container). The anoles normally eat insects, primarily ants and beetles (Rand et al., 1975).
3:21: Large marked male anole performing a headbob display. Marking was used to estimate home ranges.
3:30: More headbobs (different individual?). This is a typical anole display. The Malpelo anoles performed it infrequently compared to other anole species.
3:37: Large marked male A. agassizi performing more head bobs and dewlap extension. Malpelo anoles have relatively small dewlaps.
3:50: Attacks another male.
3:53: Nuchal crest and dewlap extended. This species has a relatively small dewlap, likely related to its lack of territoriality and reduced aggression.
4:04: Two males displaying and biting. The closer one appears to be tethered.
4:15: Males with jaws locked. Despite these cases, at least some of which appear to involve instigation by the researchers, aggression was found to be low in this species (Rand et al., 1975).
4:21: Male anole. Rosario Castañeda (2010, Ph. D. dissertation, George Washington University) found A. agassizi to be ecomorphologically divergent from other Dactyloa-clade species in having an exceptionally large number of toepad lamellae.
4:31: Anoles (some of which are marked) at orange. Note that the anoles do not attempt to monopolize this resource by displaying at each other or chasing each other away (Rand et al., 1975). The larger ones with the black heads are males.
4:47: Series of preserved Anolis agassizi specimens. No hatchlings were found during the Expedition, suggesting seasonal reproduction (Rand et al., 1975).
4:57: Dissected Anolis specimen showing testes. Probably one of the large males with a black head and nuchal crest.
5:02: Dissected Anolis specimen showing an egg. A little over 50% of the sampled females had oviducal eggs or enlarging follicles (Rand et al., 1975).
5:06: Testes again. Rand et al. (1975) found that some large males lack male secondary sexual characters (black head and erect nuchal crest) and have regressed testes (obviously, this isn’t one of them).
5:11: Back at the orange. The anoles both lick and bite the orange.
5:28: Dissected gut cavity. Possibly showing fat bodies or perhaps this is the male morph with regressed testes or perhaps showing the darkly pigmented peritoneum, a characteristic of lizards that live in areas of high insolation (Rand et al., 1975).
5:35: Back at the orange again.
5:51: Part of island with ocean in background (and birds). The shot pans to a small boat that was presumably used to transport the researchers to the island from the large ship.
6:02: Endemic Malpelo land crab, Johngarthia malpilensis. (Referred to in the Malpelo Expedition Volume as Gecarcinus malpilensis.)
6:08: Crab interaction with Diploglossus. D. millepunctutus is one of the largest anguids and one of the largest Diploglossus species. It is known to feed on dead crabs (Kiester, 1975).
6:24: Anolis agassizi male (marked).
6:30: A researcher tying a hookless fishing fly on fishing line. Ross Kiester thinks that the researcher may be William M. Rand, brother of A. Stanley Rand and co-author of the article on Anolis agassizi in the Malpelo Expedition Volume (Rand et al., 1975).
6:33: Anoles trying to capture the fly. Malpelo anoles are known to eat real flies (Diptera).
6:45: Anoles with green chuckles candy. The “Chuckles Experiment” was undertaken to test for a color preference (Rand et al., 1975). The results indicated a preference for orange and yellow Chuckles candies over red and green ones and even more so over black ones. Rand et al. speculated that this preference could be related to feeding on the yolks of broken seabird eggs.
6:52: Setting out red Chuckles candy.
6:54: Anoles on rock (more Chuckles).
6:59: Anole with red and orange Chuckles candies.
7:15: This sequence shows anoles drinking from a crevice, as reported in the Malpelo Expedition Volume by Rand et al. (1975). There are many small seeps, springs and rock pools on the island (Rand et al., 1975). Other experiments have shown that Malpelo anoles are not particularly tolerant of water loss (Rand et al., 1975).
7:43: More drinking.
7:57: Taking body temperature via the cloaca (a standard herpetological method). Rand et al. (1975) found that A. agassizi exhibits similar body-temperature preferences to other anoles.
8:05: Part of island (from boat?).
8:10: Anole runs and stops in the shade. Anoles were active during most of the day in the shade and didn’t spend much time basking (Rand et al., 1975).
8:24: Back at the half orange.
8:38: Anoles flee and a Diploglossus approaches. The Galliwasp is known to prey on anoles, but anoles are not its primary food source (Rand et al., 1975). On the other hand, Rand et al. reported that 85% of the Malpelo Anoles had regenerated tails.
8:49: Anoles.
8:52: Diploglossus departs. This is probably the individual mentioned by Rand et al. (1975) that repeatedly approached the orange when anoles were present, but did not eat the orange.
8:57: Large male anole moving up rock.
9:05: Diploglossus millepunctatus.
9:09: Anole running.
9:12: Diploglossus running. I assume that the anole is running from the galliwasp rather than the other way around.
9:17: Land crab (Johngarthia malpilensis).
9:20: Land crab and Diploglossus. Malpelo Galliwasps are known to feed on dead crabs (Kiester, 1975).
9:26: Nazca Boobies (Sula granti), adult and chick.
9:28: Diploglossusmillepunctatus. Kiester (1975) reported that when a booby chick squawks upon return of the parent to the nest, nearby galliwasps immediately run to the vicinity of the birds and will snatch and eat any fishes that are dropped.
9:33: Nazca Boobies (adult and chick) again.
9:36: Diploglossus eating a crab claw.
9:40: Two Diploglossus eating a dead crab.
9:46: Anoles back at the half orange (zoom out).
10:20: Close up of anoles at orange again.
10:40: Different shot of anoles at orange (some dart in and out).
Hot off the press — the latest anole journal cover! In this issue of 
