In a press release issued today, the Society for the Study of Evolution announced that effective immediately the name of its flagship journal will change to better reflect its contents and to position the journal at the cutting edge of evolutionary biology. Formerly known as Evolution: International Journal of Organic Evolution, the leading journal in the field will now be known as Evolution: International Journal of Anolis Lizard Evolution.
Category: Anole Art, Literature, and Humor Page 10 of 11
Stumbling over the search terms leading to the Anole Annals blog today I found this interesting bit of information:
…”afraid of anolis”?
Scoliodentosaurophobia, apparently, is the scientific expression for “fear of lizards”. It’s a category to the more general Herpetophobia (fear of amphibians and/or reptiles). These sorts of fears might seem a little bit odd to the herpetologist… after all I have heard of colleagues having bite lists for fun (“what was the coolest species that ever had its fangs in you?”). But they are surprisingly present amongst laymen and –women out there. Women in Africa would run screaming when they’d see me handling chameleons – fearing that the chameleon’s stare would prevent them from having babies. In the DR, Miguel Landestoy and I were convinced we could help prevent the slaughtering of Haitiophis snakes out of fear by telling farmers that “the girl (me) is not afraid of them either”, appealing to their machismo. The large Dominican green anole Anolis baleatus (and probably some other large crown giants too) has the nickname Salta cocote because it is supposed to jump at people from the trees, trying to suck their blood (“dice la leyenda que le salta a la gente y le muerde el cocote”). An older gentleman seemed very convinced that the Salta cocote had just sucked to death some of his neighbor’s cattle. It even has its own Merengue song (Caco e maco salta cocote, which literally means “you ugly frog head, lizard”).
Phobophobes, by the way, are afraid of phobias.
Anolis carolinensis - the green anole
Who’s your neighbor? Check out this short documentary by biologist Neil Losin about Anolis research in Miami. It’s cool research and contains some great video and still footage of anoles! After the video, explore the rest of Losin and Nathan Dappen’s Day’s Edge Productions website. Day’s Edge Productions is a new production company that uses video and multimedia to communicate science to the public.
From http://xkcd.com/
Check out the work of origami maestro Bernie Peyton! Bernie, a Berkeley trained Ph.D. and expert on Andean sun bears, is also world renowned for his origami. He combines his zoological acumen with his artistic sense, making many origami animals, some of which you can see here (although none, of course, match the splendor of his anoles). Bernie currently has a show at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut until February 28.
Photos courtesy Bernie Peyton.
Although it was filmed a few years ago, I just recently got around to watching the BBC documentary series Life in Cold Blood written and narrated by Sir David Attenborough. In the third episode of the series “Dragons of the Dry” there is a brief segment on anole display behavior. Attenborough aggravates a male A. sagrei with a mirror and is rewarded with “the full works”: erect dorsal and nuchal crests, tail wags, push-ups and dewlaping.
Imagine my surprise and delight upon entering the Winkleman Gallery last weekend in downtown New York and immediately setting eyes on this piece of art. The Anola Star is part of a new show, Binocular, by Leslie Thornton. Although this work is the only anole, and the only lizard, in the show, there are several images of snakes, as well as other animals. But the exhibition got even better! I walked into a darkened room to discover that the images also had video counterparts. Here’s a snippet of the anole piece, which ran for approximately four minutes and then repeated. Needless to say, this is my kind of art! The show only runs through Saturday, so run, don’t walk, straight downtown to see it before it closes. You can read more about the show and Thornton here, and you can see a review in the New York Times here.
“It must be the oldest part of Mérida…. In the afternoon when the sun lights the stucco buildings across the street, it’s possible to count a dozen different colors of paint, all fading together on the highest part of the wall…. Cats stalk lizards among the clay pots around the fountain, doves settle into the flowering vines and coo their prayers, thankful for the existence of lizards.” – The Lacuna, a novel by B. Kingsolver (2009; Harper Perennial; pp.393)
Mérida is the capital city of the Mexican state of Yúcatan. Of the lizards alluded to in the passage above, some were undoubtedly anoles. Anoles are well known for their radiation in the Caribbean but are less appreciated for their radiations in mainland Central and South America, which rival their Caribbean counterpart in species diversity and morphological disparity.
(I say radiations because there were actually two radiations on the mainland. The first mainland radiation includes the basal clade of Anolis and is paraphyletic because the Caribbean radiation arose from within it. The second radiation, monophyletic, is actually a back-colonization of the mainland from the Caribbean.)
Which mainland anoles could be in Mérida? There are five anoles whose species distribution places them near or in Mérida: Anolis sagrei, A. lemurinus, A. tropidonotus, A. rogdriguezii, and A. sericeus. We’ll explore the natural history of these species to determine for which one(s) Mérida’s doves are thankful.
(1) Anolis sagrei, the brown anole, is not actually a mainland anole. This Cuban species is well known for its invasive abilities. For example, it has invaded the southeast U.S., Jamaica, Central America, Hawaii, and even Taiwan. Cats are known to feast on Anolis sagrei in other parts of its range, and there is a record of A. sagrei in Mérida; however, because The Lacuna is set in the early 1950s, we will assume that A. sagrei had not yet arrived in Mérida to fall prey to cats.
Anolis sagrei - photo by Neil Losin (http://www.daysedgeproductions.com/neil.blog/)
(2) Anolis lemurinus is a grey-colored anole, found in the understory of lowland forests. Individuals of this species are partial to shaded habitats and perch on the buttresses of trees while they watch and wait for their invertebrate prey. Often, they are heard scampering along the forest floor before they are seen. Perhaps this is why this species is called lemurinus, which means “belonging to the ghosts of the dead” in Latin. Anolis lemurinus is probably not food for Mérida’s cats for two reasons: (1) Mérida lies just beyond the edge of the species range for A. lemurinus, and (2) A. lemurinus is a forest, not city, dweller.
Anolis lemurinus - photo by Michael Benard http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?enlarge=0000+0000+0107+1742
(3) Anolis tropidonotus lives in primary and secondary forests. It too is a forest dwelling anole, preferring shady habitats. Individuals in this species are predominantly terrestrial and will burrow into the leaf litter to escape capture. Like A. lemurinus, A. tropidonotus is primarily a forest species and its range nears but does not include Mérida. Thus, it is an unlikely candidate.
Anolis tropidonotus - photo by Josiah Townsend http://www.flickr.com/photos/24831531@N07/2353154759/
(4) Anolis rodriguezii is a small anole that can be found most often in dry forests but in other forest types too. It usually perches several meters high but is known to descend out of the canopy to the ground. It also scrambles along the walls of ancient Mayan ruins. There is record of this species from Mérida, so it is probably common in the forests around Mérida, may venture into human establishments, and could be falling prey to cats in Mérida
<Please send me a photo if you have one>
(5) Anolis sericeus is a small anole too. This species prefers open savanna habitats, forest edges, and areas disturbed by human activity. Individuals in this species perch on shrubs, bushes, and grass tufts. Males of this lizard have a striking dewlap that is yellow with a blue or purple spot in the center. Given this species’s penchant for human-impacted environments and its near-ground perching habits, A. sericeus seems the mostly likely anole candidate to be cat food in Mérida.
A. sericeus - http://www.fororeptiles.org/galerias/images/88/large/1_anolis_sericeus.JPG
A haiku from the doves in homage to A. sericeus:
Coo-rageous anole,
Anolis sericeus.
Distracts pesky cats.
Many thanks to Julian C. Lee. I collected most of the information about the anoles of Mérida from his two books: The amphibians and reptiles of the Yucatan Peninsula (1996 – Comstock Publishing) and A field guide to the amphibians and reptiles of the Maya world (2000 – Cornell University Press).
check out the lizard comic book super hero, Anole here
