Category: Natural History Observations Page 11 of 34

The geographic variation of the highly variable anole Anolis marmoratus from the Archipel de la Guadeloupe (France) has focused interest on the process of speciation resulting from divergent selective pressures. Nice detailed analyses such as that recently published in Molecular Ecology confirmed that differences in body color seem to correlate with environmental characteristics. Within the large diversity of form and color of anoles of the different islands of the archipelago, one phenotypic feature that appears to be variable is the color of the scales around the eye.
For two years, the team FORCE (UMR 7205 Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle/CNRS, Paris, France) in collaboration with La Direction des collections of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris, France) has been conducting different studies of the behaviors and forms of the anoles of the different islands of the archipelago. The contrasted orange color of the scales around the eye of males Anolis desiradei is remarkable and could probably play a role within the context of behavioral ecology of these anoles. At La désirade, these anoles are living in the same habitat as the endangered Iguana delicatissima. We also recorded some populations of males of Anolis marmoratus on the Basse-Terre with marked black scales around the eyes. In Marie-Galante, the scales around the eye are blue, green or yellow while the head is more often blue or green. The scales around the eye of females of all of the studied populations are often white or pale yellow.

We are now measuring the diversity of this phenotypic trait to test various hypotheses of the role of these colors in the communication between the individuals within the selected populations of Anolis from different islands.

Photo by Veronika Hříbalová

Here’s something you don’t see every day. These are Cuban twig anoles, Anolis angusticeps, in the care of Veronika Hříbalová (whose book on anoles we’ve touted previously). They’re enjoying their weekly treat of creamy mashed-up fruit baby food. Veronika says they normally feed on small insects, but if they have chance to get to sweets, they don’t hesitate.

We’ve talked about frugivory in anoles before [1, 2, 3]–it’s known in many Caribbean species, but not, as far as I’m aware, A. angusticeps or other twig anoles.

New guy on bottom. Photos by Karen Cusick.

Daffodil’s Photo Blog reported a follow-up on Monday’s sagrei smackdown. Round 2 went on for at least 40 minutes yesterday–vicious, wide-ranging, and at times comical–and the young dude got his comeuppance! Serves him right.

Gardening glove takes a beating.

Photos by Karen Cusick

Over at Daffodil’s Photo Blog, Karen Cusick  reports on an intense battle between two brown anoles. Where did this new champion come from? And  how will he be stopped?

The king is dead (or at least chased off). Long live the king!

Photo by Frank Burbrink

Ophidiologist extraordinaire Frank Burbrink posted a photo of this Costa Rican anole on Facebook, challenging several of us to identify it. The consensus is that it’s A. lionotus or perhaps A. poecilopus. Any thoughts? More importantly, Frank of snake phylogenetics fame (including a paper on Caribbean serpents), had this to say:

“I really like these streamside anoles. Ecologically and morphologically they seem so un-Anolis like. There were tons of these guys along the wet rocks also inhabited by plethodontids nearby. I would love to see an Anole Annals post about these the very wet streamside anoles.”

So, here one is! He goes on:

“First off…they seemed unusually wet and cold. Second they were everywhere. Third they seemed to be able to hold onto the face of very slippery large rocks (boulders)…some right next to the waterfalls. I am not sure how they actually got there…unless they swam and crawled up the face of the rock. That seems like it wouldn’t take much effort to observe how they do it. Anyhow, everything about them was very non-anole like—other than the huge dewlap, body and head shape.”

Photo by Frank Burbrink

“They seem to exist in a niche not filled by other lizards …certainly not even the semi-aquatic gymnothalmids. It makes you wonder from what ancestral ecomorph they invaded this particular niche…which again seems so un-Anolis” like.

Editor’s note: we’ll be hearing soon about the talks in the upcoming herp meetings, one of which is on aquatic anoles. More on that soon.

A twofer. Photo by Frank Burbrink

Anolis cuvieri. Photo by J. Losos.

Several days ago, Manuel Leal, Liam Revell and I went to Cambalache State Forest in Puerto Rico, west of San Juan. We were there to search for anoles, particularly–the giant Puerto Rican anole, Anolis cuvieri—and other fauna and flora. The trip was a great success, culminating in an action-packed interaction between three—count ‘em, three!—A. cuvieri. Manuel has already posted some observations over on Chipojolab, but Rashomon-style, I’ll present my take on what went down.

At about 2 p.m., we were walking along when a female—our fourth cuvieri of the day—was spotted head down at a height of about six feet on a tree trunk. After observing it for a few minutes, we noticed that there was a male about four feet above her on the same trunk. We watched them do nothing for a while, the inactivity perhaps caused in part by our peering and approaching for photographs.

Manuel Leal photographing two Puerto Rican giant anoles.

After a while, the female walked across a narrow branch to the next tree, performing some small headbobs as she did so. After a while more, the male started displaying (see photo), but the female studiously ignored him. Finally, the male came over to the female, who immediately ran away, up the tree. The male ran after her and caught up with her. She seemed to be playing hard to get—if she’d really wanted to get away, why did she stop and let the male get to her? He then approached her from behind in typical male fashion and grabbed onto her by biting the back of her neck. She, however, would not allow him to mate, keeping her body pressed firmly to the branch.

Attempted mating, with female not being cooperative. Photo by Manuel Leal from Chipojolab

After this went on for a while, another male comes tearing over through the canopy from another tree and chases the first male down to the ground, where he runs to a nearby tree. The female takes off and disappears up the tree. The second male then goes back up the tree. After a while, the first male—who had turned very brown—moves over to a nearby tree, slowly resumes his green color, and starts nodding. The two males bob and look menacingly at each other, but they are separated by a distance too great to jump across. At the beginning, the second male flashed his dewlap a lot and presented an open mouth tongue display, but as time went on and the old male regained his greenness, these behaviors waned. Both males continually moved up their respective trees, neither seeming to want to let the other be higher. As the trees bent in opposite directions, moving up caused the males to become further and further apart. After a while, male #2 turned dark and seemed to adopt a submissive pose, whereas male #1, who had been chased off, had a victorious pose. How the two of them had decided that #1 had won is a mystery.

Males posturing at each other from a distance. Photo by M. Leal at Chipojolab

So, what went on? Was the female being unreceptive because #1 was an interloper and she was waiting for her guy to come by? Given that #2 started from another tree and eventually retreated back to it, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Was she mating publicly and prominently to attempt to attract other males, as Trivers suggested for the Jamaican giant A. garmani? Another point is that the interaction, although aggressive, involved little or no physical contact (couldn’t quite tell what happened when the second male rushed the first one at the outset); these two males may be old acquaintances and were simply reminding each other of where their territory boundaries lies. Notably, as well, when the two males were displaying back and forth, it seemed at times like one or the other was thinking about attacking, but the distance between the trees was too great to bridge in a jump. The only other avenue would have been to go to the ground and run over to the other tree, and then attack from below, which would seem to put that male at a disadvantage according to the laws of gravity.

I am unaware of any reports in the literature on A. cuvieri territorial or mating behavior, so these observations are interesting and perplexing. As Manuel states, this shows the importance of getting out and observing animals in their natural habitats—we’ve got a lot left to learn.

Photo by Manuel Leal

Another anole bites the dust. Or does it? Over at Chipojolab,  Manuel Leal reports the observation of a Puerto Rico racer apparently in the process of ingesting an Anolis krugi. But if you look carefully, the krugi is giving as good as he gets. Or at least doing his darned best. Will it be enough to fend off his demise? Seems unlikely given the size difference, but in lab trials, Leal and Javier Rodríguez-Robles showed that Anolis cristatellus often bites attacking racers on the snout and can hang on for as long as 20 minutes; in 37% of the trials, the lizard actually escaped. Admittedly, cristatellus is bigger and beefier than krugi, but who knows–maybe this guy lived to see another day.