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Anole Photo Contest 2017: Call for Submissions!

Anolis vermiculatus, by Raimundo López-Silvero Martínez

Another year, another field season (or seasons) come and gone, and now it’s time to share the great anoles we’ve seen! Get ready for the Anole Annals Photo Contest: 2017 Edition.

As in previous years, the Anole Annals team wants to see your best anole photographs for our 2018 calendar.

Here’s how it works: anyone who wants to participate will submit their favorite photos. The editors of Anole Annals will choose a set of 30-40 finalists from that initial pool. We’ll then put those photos up for a vote on this here blog, and the 12 winning photos will be chose by readers of Anole Annals, as well as a panel of anole photography experts. The grand prize winner and runner-up will have his/her photo featured on the front cover of the 2017 Anole Annals calendar, second place winner will have his/her photo featured on the back cover, and they’ll both win a free calendar!

Before we move on, I’d like to issue a correction from last year’s calendar – due to an unfortunate email miscommunication, we accidentally attributed several photos to the wrong photographer. By the time we realized our mistake, the calendar was already in print. We would like to sincerely apologize to Raimundo López-Silvero Martínez and Rosario Basail​, whose photos, Anolis vermiculatus (September) and Anolis garridoi (April) respectively, we mis-credited. But please, take a look and appreciate them here! We will be sure to be more careful this year.

garridoi

Anolis garridoi, by Rosario Basail​

Back to business. The rules: submit your photos (as many as you’d like) as email attachments to anoleannalsphotos@gmail.com. To make sure that your submissions arrive, please send an accompanying email without any attachments to confirm that we’ve received them. Photos must be at least 150 dpi and print to a size of 11 x 17 inches. If you are unsure how to resize your images, the simplest thing to do is to submit the raw image files produced by your digital camera (or if you must, a high quality scan of a printed image).  If you elect to alter your own images, don’t forget that it’s always better to resize than to resample. Images with watermarks or other digital alterations that extend beyond color correction, sharpening and other basic editing will not be accepted. We are not going to deal with formal copyright law and ask only your permission to use your image for the calendar and related content on Anole Annals (more specifically, by submitting your photos, you are agreeing to allow us to use them in the calendar). We, in turn, agree that your images will never be used without attribution and that we will not profit financially from their use (the small amount of royalties we receive are used to purchase calendars for the winners). Please only submit photos you’ve taken yourself, not from other photographers–by submitting photos, you are declaring that you are the photographer and have the authority to allow the photograph to be used in the calendar if it is chosen.

Please provide a short description of the photo that includes: (1) the species name, (2) the location where the photo was taken, and (3) any other relevant information. Be sure to include your full name in your email as well. Deadline for submission is November 6, 2017.

Good luck, and we look forward to seeing your photos!

Fishing Anole Part II: The Lizard Actually Catches a Guppy!

We saw the brown anole jumping into the water in part I, now we see the gory, but delicious, aftermath!

Brown Anole Goes Fishing for Guppies

 

 

Egret Eats Green Anole

Photo by John Karges

Photo by John Karges

We’ve seen this before. Anoles are, alas, no match for these large and wily marauders. John Karges provides the story: “The egret was flying down the riparian woodland corridor over a side channel, and abruptly landed in the mid-story thicket overhanging the stream and immediately began a stalk. It lunge-grabbed the anole, and very quickly devoured the adult anole in a matter of seconds.”

And here’s where it went down: 2 Oct 2016 San Antonio Mission NHP, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas.

And the inevitable outcome.

Photo by John Karges

Photo by John Karges

Keep Your Enemies Closer: Green Anole Seeks Safety in the Coils of a Snake

The head of the Green Anole is circled in white. The tolerance of the Cornsnake was perhaps aided by what appeared to be full belly.

The head of the Green Anole is circled in white. The tolerance of the Cornsnake was perhaps aided by what appeared to be full belly.

Snakes love anoles, though their affection is seldom reciprocated. Unsurprising. But, it seems a snake/anole relationship which leaves the anole happy and undigested is not beyond the realm of possibility. In a recent natural history note, published in Herpetological Review, James Stroud and I describe an unlikely friendship I happened upon while working as a field technician in Miami FL. While collecting samples and doing routine maintenance on an automatic water sampler in Everglades National Park, I found a Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) nestled within the coils of a large Cornsnake (Pantherophis guttatus) inside the external battery housing of the sampling unit. At first, my delight was focused on the snake (such encounters were a big perk of the job), but then I noticed a slender head regarding me cautiously from the safety of the coils. After a moment, the lizard slowly pulled its head fully underneath its protector, and I closed the lid on the snake/lizard duo, content the battery was in working condition. It was a cool day, and I was happy that I did not need to disturb the animals.

Given the tendency of snakes to make meals out of anoles, this encounter struck me as odd. After casually mentioning it to James Stroud, he immediately suggested this as a possible incident of kleptothermy, which describes a thermoregulatory process by which an organism regulates its body temperature by stealing the warmth of other organisms. The snake was certainly much larger, and so even though it was a fellow ectotherm, snuggling up to it would have likely provided some increase in thermal inertia. Thermal benefits aside, did the oblivious(?) guardian also provide protection against smaller Cornsnakes, perhaps more used to preying on anoles of that size? Did the lizard even realize what it had decided to make its bed upon when it crawled into the dark confines of the battery housing? We may never know.

Anolis scriptus on Turks and Caicos, and the Threat of Rats

Concerns Raised over Introduction of Festive Anole to Bermuda

From the September 28, 2017 edition of The Royal Gazette, the daily newspaper of Bermuda.

Fears over lizard arrival

Jonathan Bell

  • Thriving: the brown anole, a new lizard species believed to have arrived from Florida (Photograph supplied)

Bermuda’s latest lizard arrival, the brown anole, appears to be thriving but is prompting concern over the island’s endangered natives.

The lizards, first seen in 2014 and recently spotted on the grounds of Aberfeldy Nursery in Paget, are suspected to have arrived from Florida.

One of that state’s most abundant lizards, the anole arrived there from the Caribbean, where it is native to the Bahamas and Cuba.

Popular as pets but aggressive breeders in the wild, the lizard, distinguished by ridges on its back, has proliferated in the southern United States.

According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Bermuda has two distinct populations of brown anoles.

Genetic analysis shows that the two groups came from “separate founding events”, meaning the second did not arise from the first.

Noting the lizard’s capacity to spread rapidly, Jonathan Starling, executive director of the environmental group Greenrock, voiced concern that the anole would ultimately crowd out Bermuda’s imperilled skinks.

“Unlike the three other Anolis species known to be in Bermuda, the common blue Jamaican, the Warwick or Antiguan and the Barbados, this one is primarily a terrestrial species, the rest being arboreal or tree dwelling,” Mr Starling said.

“The endemic Bermuda skink, already at critically low populations, is also a primarily terrestrial species, so this new lizard poses a much bigger threat to it than the others did.

“I am not aware of the current range of this new lizard but I believe it is still confined within Pembroke and Paget parishes, so at the moment it is not coming into conflict with the remaining known skink populations. However it is likely their range will expand and come into contact with known skink populations within a decade, if not sooner.”

The unwelcome development is the latest of many threats to the endemic skink, which are easily trapped and killed by discarded bottles and cans.

Skinks are also at jeopardy from storms, as well as predation from other invasive species such as cats and rats.

“We’d hope that new initiatives, such as mandatory recycling or a bottle bill, would at least reduce that particular threat to skinks, which would likely benefit them in handling the novel threat posed by this invasive lizard,” Mr Starling said.

T-shirt Contest for Anolis Symposium VII Now Open!

T-shirt from the 1999 Anolis symposium at Penn State

T-shirt from the 1999 Anolis symposium at Penn State

As you may have heard in the announcement of the 7th Anolis symposium, we are searching for the official t-shirt design! You’re all surely aware of how talented our community is, as exemplified by past photo and poetry competitions, so we are asking you all to submit your best designs! A panel of discerning anolologists will choose the winning design, and the winner will receive glory, bragging rights, and pride in knowing that their artwork will be memorialized in t-shirt form for all to admire (the winner will also receive a free shirt).

Designs must meet the following criteria:
Style: line drawings are preferred
Size: Must fit neatly into a 8” x 8” square
Number of colors: 2
File type: high-quality .jpg, .png files or illustrator files.

Also, lease be aware that we may have to make minor alterations to the winning design in order for it to fit onto a t-shirt.

Front of the shirt from the 2009 symposium

Front of the shirt from the 2009 symposium

Please send all submissions to anolis2018@gmail.com with the subject line “anole t-shirt contest” by October 20, 2017!

Stay tuned for the winning design, and may the odds be in your favor! We look forward to seeing all of your submissions. For more information on the symposium, be sure to check out the official page!

p.s. Who still has a t-shirt from the 1989 meeting? Photo?

Back of the t-shirt from the 2009 symposium at Harvard

Back of the t-shirt from the 2009 symposium at Harvard

Request for Anolis aquaticus Photos and Sightings

Photo by Anolis aquaticus from wildherps.com.

Hello anole enthusiasts!

A quick note and a request from your Anolis aquaticus correspondent. Our new paper on stress-related body color brightening in Anolis aquaticus was recently selected as Editor’s Choice in the Canadian Journal of Zoology. In it, we document a genus-atypical direction of color change following exposure to a stressor, possibly related to optimizing camouflage in the water anole’s unusual habitat. Enjoy!

We are embarking on a new research direction with these wonderful watery critters. In our early stages of surveying, I’d like to ask for your help.

We are exploring morphological and behavioral variation across the water anole’s range to explore several hypotheses related to coloration, habitat lighting, temperature, and stress.
For example, dewlap coloration seems to be fairly variable: water anole dewlaps from our sites at Las Cruces Biological Station are red-orange (left), but at Osa the dewlaps are much yellower (e.g., screen shot taken from Brave Wilderness’s video* on the water anole, right).
jennetOsa

In addition, we’re also interested in knowing a little more about water anoles in the riparian zones that are found in otherwise deforested tropical pasture lands. We’ve put together a map of all known collection sites of museum specimens and published studies (sites shown without exact coordinates in the interest of species’ protection; grey sites are approximate).

Anolis aquaticus collection and sightings

You can help by sharing with us your photographs of water anoles (dewlaps are of special interest, but any photographs would be appreciated) and/or locality data** of Anolis aquaticus sightings or collection. Locations of sightings in pasture/agricultural areas are especially needed!

Lindseyns @ gmail.com
Lindsey.swierk @ yale.edu

Thank you for your help!

*A very enthusiastic group called Brave Wilderness posted a video about their search for the “mysterious” water anole. I have mixed feelings about it and its less-than-perfectly-accurate information, but it certainly captures kids’ imaginations!

**To keep this charismatic species safe and help prevent poaching, please send any GPS coordinates to me directly rather than posting them publicly.

Are Brown Anoles in Florida Really Driving Green Anoles to Extinction III: A Post-Irma Update

Almost anyone who cares about anoles in the US  is aware of the hypothesis that the arrival of brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) into Florida has driven declines in the abundance of native green anoles  (A. carolinensis). Though there is certainly evidence that this hypothesis may be valid to some extent, we’ve previously wondered if the decline is as severe as folks seem to think it is. Have green anoles instead simply shifted to higher perches where we don’t see them as often? An informal mark-recapture effort conducted in Gainesville FL suggests that green anoles may in fact be quite abundant, and  based on the evolutionary history of green and brown anoles across their ranges, we do in fact expect green anoles to shift upwards where they co-occur with brown anoles.

Green anoles, increasingly elusive in Florida

Green anoles, increasingly elusive in Florida

We now have yet another piece of evidence that green anoles may be thriving at the tops of trees , just out of sight. Because of Hurricane Irma, which wreaked havoc across Florida last week, many of those tree canopies have fallen to the ground. And Miami herpetologist Steven Whitfield  reported yesterday seeing “more green anoles in the past two days than I have in the two months before that.” This observation was confirmed by other local biologists as well, in comments on Whitfield’s initial Facebook post that said “Green anoles are all over the place. Seems they were around up in the canopy, but now the canopy is on the ground so they’re easy to see.”

 

Page 58 of 148

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