Ok, who recognizes this one? And does it look it’s a member of any of the ecomorph categories? You make the call!
Category: Anole Photographs Page 8 of 9
During a field survey in Muelas (21-08-2011; 21:07), buffer zone of the Santa Fe National Park in central Panama, an A. lionotus was captured in its sleeping posture on the river bank. Interestingly, they seem to “mimic” the dead tree branch, but being cryptic at night does not make much sense to me; even if the predator is capable of night vision, being perched on a tree without leaves does not seem to be an advantage.
Anolis lionotus
Stephanie Zembillas, who posted this photo on Twitter and another on Tumblr, had this to say: “I wanted a picture of a moth, but an anole wanted lunch. We made a compromise.”
Good morning, Mr. Anole. Please get off my car.
Tweeted by Sugar Glitzcream from JenMang‘s Instagram photo.
Anolis bartschi photograph by Steven De Decker.
[Editor’s Note: the person who took this photograph is Steven De Decker; see comments after the first paragraph for corrected information]
As one of the seven or eight folks who judged the photos in this year’s AA photo contest I want to give some recognition to an image that didn’t even make the list of finalists determined by popular vote. My judge’s choice award winner is a striking photograph of a juvenile of the Cuban endemic Anolis bartschi that was taken by Joe Burgess at Cueva del Indio, Vinales, Cuba. Although observed most frequently on rocks in karstic regions, individuals like this one are also commonly seen on trunks and other broad perches emerging from the karst beneath. The quality and clarity of this image are superb. The subtle colors along the animals spine and the steely blue of the eye and surrounding region are beautiful under natural light (perhaps complemented with a tactfully subtle fill flash?). A catch-light in the black eye gives the lizard some personality, and makes me wonder what it might be thinking. The right front forelimb is lifted off the trunk and possibility somewhat blurred by motion, impressing me with the animals agility and suggesting that its ready to make a move. This photo that makes me want to get out and find some anoles.
[Note from Jonathan Losos: I screwed up! There were two photos of A. bartschi entered into the photo contest, and when Rich asked for information on the A. bartschi photo, I gave him the info for the wrong one. The photo above was taken by Steven De Decker (who also took the grand prize winning photograph of A. allisoni). Steven had this to say about the photograph of the juvenile: “It was in the proximity of the prehistoric wall at Vinales, Pinar Del Rio. We were there with 2 local biologists who told us A. bartschi was pretty common to be found at the wall 10 years ago. Great was our disappointment when we saw that [the curly tailed lizard] Leiocephalus carinatus had taken over habitat near the wall. When we went back we decided to investigate some semi caves at the border of the park, and that’s where we found A. bartschi sitting on a trunk near the caves. And to answer your question, no I didn’t use a flash for this particular photo. Using the flash here would have given me a black background.
Meanwhile, below I’ve pasted the photo of A. bartschi by Joe Burgess (whose photo of an A. gorgonae took second place in the contest); this is the photo for which Rich gave info in his post above.
Good luck!
Could this be the all-time coolest anole dewlap?
As we all know, even though the diversity of anoles is greater on mainland Central and South America, we know a lot more about the island species. This extends even to simple matters such as resources for learning about and identifying species–for many mainland areas, it is hard to get information on the species that occur there, although this has changed in recent years.
Nowhere is this more true than in Mexico, an anologically rich area for which information on the anolifauna has not been brought together into a single compendium. Into this breach step Levi Gray, Steve Poe, and Adrian Nieto Montes de Oca, who have just produced a photo guide to the anoles of Mexico.
They recognize 46 species of Mexican anoles. Of these 46, the authors and collaborators in the Poe Lab have caught 40 of them, including approximately 21 from their type localities, and field work this month is targetting three of the others. The photos in the key are all from the authors, except the carolinensis photo provided by Alexis Harrison. The key includes all Mexican anoles that the authors recognize (leaving out forms they consider unlikely to be valid–e.g., cumingi–or that have questionable status–e.g., utowanae). The authors report that the well-known species schmidti, simmonsi, breedlovei, polyrhachis, microlepis and adleri are junior synonyms of other forms; these points will be discussed in a paper currently in review in Zootaxa; unfamiliar names in the key (e.g., rubiginosus) will be explained in that paper as well.
Below are low-resolution pictures of the guides; larger, downloadable pdfs can be accessed here. And I can’t help but adding: isn’t the diversity of dewlap colors and patterns incredible? I vote for sericeus as one of the greatest ever!
Well, the election is finally over, and the electoral results are awash with the color blue. More than 300 votes were cast in the semi-finals round, and then an all-star panel chose our winners from the top 12 in the popular vote. Perhaps surprisingly (perhaps not), the hoi polloi and the experts identified the same top three photos.
So now, with no further ado, the winner of the 2012 Anole Photo Contest is…
Juan Salvador Mendoza
Fundación Kamajorú para la conservación y educación ambiental Barranquilla, Colombia.
Detail of Anolis concolor, San Andres Islas, Colombia; Juan Salvador Mendoza, July 2012.
Anoles (genus Anolis sensu old taxonomy) are one of the most diverse neo-tropical vertebrate groups with more than 200 species. In continental Colombia more than 60 anole species have been registered, including 30 which are endemic (Sanchez et al. 1995). Three more endemic species are known from the insular portion of San Andres and Providencia in the Atlantic Ocean and Malpelo in the Pacific (Sanchez et al. 1995). One of this insular species is A. concolor (Cope, 1836) a relatively medium-sized anole (60-80 mm SVL) that inhabits mangroves and dry forests in the islands of San Andres and Providencia; on the latter island, this species is sympatric with a A. pinchoti which is endemic only to the island of Providencia. In the Pacific, the representative species is A. agassizi from Malpelo Island.
A.concolor. Male, Jardin Botanico, Universidad Nacional, sede Caribe; San Andres Islas, Colombia. Juan Salvador Mendoza 2012
Anolis concolor is a very agile lizard that may use the ground, tree trunks and branches to forage and display courtship and territorial behavior. I observed and photographed several individuals in the “Jardin Botanico, Universidad Nacional de Colombia;” this garden holds more than two hectares of the natural vegetation of the island, tropical dry forest. This lizard can be found in the borders of roads on top of secondary vegetation and can be also found in conserved remnants of mangroves and dry forest. In San Andres this species shares its habitat with a gecko species (Aristelliger georgensis) that may be also found even during the day time in the tree trunks. This is the only anole species in San Andres Island and can be very abundant; I counted 35 individuals in a 1 km forest trail.
Anolis gadovi, taylori or something else?
We’ve discussed iNaturalist before. It’s an on-line community for naturalists where you can “record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world.” In fact, if you go to AA‘s Citizen Science page, you can see recent iNaturalist anole observations, and you can add your own observations there as well. Get to it!
This photograph was uploaded to iNaturalist today, snapped at Jardín Botánico de Acapulco Esther Pliego de Salinas in Acapulco. Speculation abounds that it’s either A. taylori or A. gadovi. Can anyone out there confirm the identity of this beauty?