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New community science reports show that the Peters’s Rock Agama (Agama picticauda) is spreading from Florida and has reached the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands, undoubtedly carried as stowaways on outbound vessels. A group of Caribbean-based biologists and conservationists are expressing their deep concern because this region is a biodiversity hotpot with thousands of unique, endemic species, over 1,500 of which are already at high risk of extinction.

In their letter to the journal Animal Conservation, the authors identify nearly 50 native reptile species (among which many species of Anolis) that could be impacted if the agama becomes established across the Eastern Caribbean. Given that it is known to capture prey up to at least 5 cm snout-vent length, many species are at risk of being eaten by the agamas; even large native lizards are likely to experience competition and displacement given the agama’s aggressive behaviours.

The authors advise scientists, conservationists, policy makers, veterinarians and border control agencies to be on high alert for incursions by Peters’s Rock Agamas and other non-native reptiles. They further urge the transport sector – especially those operating out of Florida – to be on the lookout for the agama and to take swift measures to remove them.

The letter has been published in Animal Conservation: M.P. van den Burg et al.: The threat of Peters’s Rock Agama (Agama picticauda) to reptile diversity across the Lesser Antilles. Animal Conservation 2023, 12889. https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12889

I was recently reminded of the paper by Estrada and Silva Rodriguez on the ecological morphology of Cuban anoles. It was one of the first papers to quantitatively examine differences in morphology among a large and ecomorphologically diverse set of species. It was published in Ciencias Biológicas which can be hard to access, probably accounting for the fact that it hasn’t received the attention it deserves.

The picture and caption say it all. Read the paper by Felipe Espinoza De Janon and Mario Yánez-Muñoz.

Some cool canopy-dwelling anoles.

So little is known about what anoles do high above the ground that information from tree climbing censuses is always welcome. Thomas et al. report on their observations of several anoles tens of meters off the ground in the Chocó region of northwestern Ecuador. 

The familiar name “Dactyloidae” is no more, as “Anolidae” is the taxonomically appropriate nomenclature for the family under the Zoological Code. As a result, all anoles, such as the A. porcatus above, are now part of the family Anolidae.

In a recent paper in Herpetological Review, Kevin de Queiroz clarifies the family nomenclature of the clade containing Anolis lizards.

Kevin has kindly provided the following abstract to Anole Annals for his article below:

Under rank-based nomenclature, Anolis is currently assigned to the family Dactyloidae under the premise that Dactyloidae is the oldest name in the family group based on the name of a genus included in that taxon (even if that genus is not recognized by subsequent authors who recognize the family). The name Dactyloidae Fitzinger 1843 has been considered to have priority over Anolidae, which has been attributed to Cope (1864). However, Cope (1864) is not the original author of the name Anolidae, which was proposed some 28 years earlier by Cocteau (1836) in a publication that has been overlooked by recent authors. Anolidae Cocteau 1836 has priority over Dactyloidae Fitzinger 1843, and therefore Anolidae is the valid (correct) name of the family that contains the genus Anolis. The publication by Cocteau (1836) also establishes that Cocteau, and not Duméril and Bibron (1837), is the author of the species name Anolis loysiana (originally proposed as Acantholis loysiana).

New literature alert!

The Correct Name for the Taxon Ranked as a Family Containing the Genus Anolis under Rank-based Nomenclature and the Author of the Name Anolis loysiana

Check out the full article in Herpetological Review

de Queiroz (2022)

mCT reconstruction of the second specimen (USNM 5095) of Anolis incredulus (from de Queiroz et al. 2023).

Anolis incredulus, a poorly known Cuban species from the angusticeps species group, is lonely no more. In a recent paper, de Queiroz et al. (2023) report the discovery of an additional specimen of A. incredulus collected more than 100 years prior to the collection of the holotype. The additional specimen (USNM 5095) was tucked away in the Smithsonian’s collection and wasn’t discovered until co-author Esther Langan noticed that specimens in a series labeled as A. guazuma actually appeared to comprise two separate taxa. Upon investigation, one specimen in particular–USNM 5095–was concluded to likely represent the second specimen of A. incredulus. In their paper, de Queiroz et al. redescribe the morphology of this species, infer its phylogenetic position using morphological characters, and note the paucity of ecological data for this anole. Give it a read, it’s open access in Zootaxa!

New literature alert!

No longer in doubt: Discovery of a second specimen corroborates the validity of Anolis incredulus Garrido and Moreno 1998 (Reptilia, Iguania)

In Zootaxa

de Queiroz, Huie, and Langan (2023)

Abstract:

The species Anolis incredulus was proposed based on a single, poorly preserved specimen from the Sierra Maestra (mountain range) of southeastern Cuba. As its name suggests, this species was considered likely to raise doubts when it was first proposed, and it has been explicitly treated by some recent authors as a species inquirenda (a species of doubtful identity). Here we report on a second specimen of Anolis incredulus discovered in the amphibian and reptile collection of the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) that was collected more than 100 years before the holotype. We describe this specimen in detail and compare it both with the description of the holotype of A. incredulus and with presumed closely related Cuban species, providing evidence that it matches closely with the former and is distinct from the latter, thus corroborating the status of A. incredulus as a valid species. We also score and measure the specimen for sets of morphological characters to make inferences about its phylogenetic relationships and ecology (structural habitat use). Our results indicate that Anolis incredulus is likely a member of a clade of mostly Cuban twig-anole species and that it is a member of the twig ecomorph category, although its reported green coloration suggests either an erroneous ecomorph assignment or a difference in color from that of most other species of Cuban twig anoles.

Dear AA community,

I have just recently returned back home to Slovenia, where I started a research position at the Jovan Hadži Biological Institute, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Although I have thus far studied topics as diverse as sexual selection (nephilid spiders), phylogenetics (cuttlefishes) and visual gene expression (deep-sea fishes and cichlids), I have always had a keen interest in anole evolution. With the new position in hand and certain questions in mind, it seems that the time is ripe to finally, slowly but surely, delve into anole research.

Topics I am most interested in concern sexual selection and maternal effects, but also phenotypic plasticity in general; the latter also from a molecular (transcriptomic) point of view. Since AA brings together anole researchers of all scopes, I was thinking of asking here directly . . .

Would you be able to point me in the right direction and suggest colleagues and research groups that tackle questions within the scope of the aforementioned topics?

Please don’t hesitate to email me directly (nik.lupse@zrc-sazu.si) if willing to discuss in more detail. Many thanks!

Sincerely, Nik Lupše

MCZ 36138, the holotype of Anolis roosevelti. Laszlo Meszoly, del. From Mayer and Gamble 2019.

We recently reported on the new U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service review of the status of A. roosevelti (spoiler alert: not good). And we mentioned that we’ve had a lot of posts on this species before, including a number of recountings of previous attempts to find the elusive beast. In turn, this post prompted Ray Huey to recount his own efforts. Here goes:

During my first summer at Harvard (1971), I joined Ernest Williams (my advisor) and two grad students (Preston Webster, Joan Roughgarden) on a trip to the Caribbean. This was my first introduction to the amazing Anolis lizards. We went to the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe (magnificent), Puerto Rico, and then Culebra–discovered by Columbus–off the east coast of Puerto Rico.

In 1939, the U.S. Navy started using Culebra as a target for bombing practice. But is also the island where Anolis roosevelti, a “giant” anole”–was found, but last seen in 1931. Williams thought we should try to find the beast, even though it had probably been blown to extinction.

We arrived at the tiny town of Culebra Pueblo in late afternoon. The only hotel was full, but we found a small rental house run by Frank Slaughter. Frank was colorful.  He had been a boat captain and had ferried Richard Levins and Harold Heatwole around while they were doing biological surveys on small islands near Puerto Rico.

Slaughter had a way with words. He referred to Levins as a “strange duck”: “When I was in high school, people were counting the number of hairs on the asshole of fruit flies. And here was Richard Levins, a grown man, still counting the number of hairs on asshole of fruit flies.”

Given that Levins was one of the premier evolutionary theorists of his era, we all howled.

Back to the business of looking for Anolis roosevelti. Williams asked Slaughter whether he’d seen any big green lizards on Culebra. Slaughter replied, “How big is big? Do you have to reach up to milk it?” Williams (who was usually formal, especially with strangers) was speechless. The rest of us had to work to keep from laughing. All things are relative, but some are more relative than others.

You can access the report here.

Previous Anole Annals posts on A. roosevelti–some guaranteed interesting!–can be found here.