httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPti2cm2ypw&feature=player_embedded
Those darn faux anole day geckos are out-cuting our boys again. The title of this post is self-explanatory, but the link to anoles isn’t completely tenuous–the gene that encodes for taste receptors that are sensitive to sweet things isn’t posssessed by all animals (e.g., cats lack it), but it has been found in the anole genome and, Matthew Cobb guesses based on this video, in geckos as well.
Check ’em out on dust tracks on the web. Who says green anoles perch high up when in areas where brown anoles don’t occur (check out this recent post and especially the comments to find someone who says they do, at least in North Carolina).
AA contributor Dave Steinberg is in Costa Rica filming anoles. He’s posted his first report over on Chipojolab, featuring information on the diet of a juvenile A. capito he caught, with a surprising twist.
Male A. pogus fighting. Photo from http://www.lesfruitsdemer.org/wp-content/gallery/anolis-pogus-battle-03-01-2010/DSC_7573.jpg
Recently, our lab group was discussing what can be inferred from calculating tail loss rates in anole populations. It was pointed out that tail loss doesn’t necessarily result from predators and that, in fact, males may bite off the tails of other males in fights, and the victor or vanquished may even eat the tail. Someone pointed out that the older literature certainly pointed this out with examples*, but we haven’t seen much of this in more recent literature. So, we then asked, has anyone ever actually seen a tail lost in a fight? No one had. I then got online to look for photos. I could find plenty of males fighting, usually locking jaws or sometimes biting the body or a limb, but I found no photos of an anole biting another’s tail, much less biting off a tail. So, I ask you, fair AA reader, have you ever seen this? Can you provide a photo?
*By earlier literature, we were thinking 1960’s and 1970’s, but here’s a quote from the 1870’s, referring to A. cristatellus. Can you name the author? “During the spring and early part of the summer, two adult males rarely meet without a contest. On first seeing one another, they nod their heads up and down three or four times, and at the same time expanding the frill or pouch beneath the throat; their eyes glisten with rage, and after waving their tails from side to side for a few seconds, as if to gather energy, they dart at each other furiously, rolling over and over, and holding firmly with their teeth. The conflict generally ends in one of the combatants losing his tail, which is often devoured by the victor.”
This NC green anole is on the ground, but mostly they apparently are up in the trees. Photo from http://www.wildherps.com/images/herps/standard/08041129PD_green_anole.jpg
We’ve had a lot of talk here on AA about how green anoles can be found low to the ground in places where A. sagrei has not invaded. But Manuel Leal says that’s not so in sagrei-less North Carolina, where all the ones he saw in the woods were high in the trees. What gives?
The observations made on the 14th of July, 2002. A – the adult male Japalura swinhonis attempts to prey upon the crickets it can see through the plastic container; B – the Japalura swinhonis moves aside, and an adult male Anolis sagrei takes his place at the plastic container; and C – as the Anolis sagrei attempts to prey on the crickets, which it can see through the plastic, the Japalura swinhonis moves up the trunk of the betel nut palm.
On the 14th of July, 2002, I wanted to test the possibility of using a modified funnel-trap to collect Anolis sagrei. The first lizard to respond to my trap, though, was an adult male of the agamid, Japalura swinhonis, that was attracted by the movements of the crickets in the trap. The J. swinhonis attempted to prey on the prey items for about 30 seconds. When an adult male A. sagrei approached, the J. swinhonis moved up the trunk of the betelnut palm onto which the trap was secured. No further observations were made after the A. sagrei lost interest after about one minute and moved off.
This was to date the only instance I observed in which a J. swinhonis gave way to an A. sagrei, and I am quite convinced that the J. swinhonis actually just lost interest in the possible prey in the trap, and as it moved away the A. sagrei thought he could try his luck. And this is my point concerning A. sagrei in Taiwan.
In my study area in Santzepu, Chiayi County, southwestern Taiwan, J. swinhonis males (mean ± SD = 70.5 ± 8.4 mm) and females (mean ± SD = 58.2 ± 13.9 mm) are substantially larger than A. sagrei (males; mean ± SD = 46.2 ± 9.1 mm; females; mean ± SD = 38.2 ± 5.5 mm). In most other aspects, both species are quite similar; both are diurnal trunk-ground ambush foragers and are very territorial. In a paper I am currently preparing, I compared the diet of these species and found that A. sagrei has a much wider dietary niche breadth than J. swinhonis, and that in areas where J. swinhonis and A. sagrei are sympatric, there is a substantial dietary niche overlap, and competition for prey is very likely.
Although both species are human commensals, J. swinhonis is more shade tolerant, while A. sagrei reaches higher densities in open disturbed habitats. So, my view of A. sagrei in Taiwan is that this species is here to stay, and we have to accept that it is becoming part of local ecosystems.
Photo by Piotr Naskrecki from thesmaller majority.com
World class photographer Piotr Naskrecki has a blog, The Smaller Majority, in which he writes about little beasties. Recently he featured the aquatic anoles of Costa Rica. Most notably, he includes some excellent photos of an aquatic anole eating a freshly caught aquatic insect, slightly surprising as some reports are that Central American aquatic anoles only use the water to escape predators. Here’s his description of what he observed:
Photo by Piotr Naskrecki
“The actual capture of the insect happened under water, and thus I did not see the very moment of the catch. These roaches (a still undescribed species) live in the sand and under submerged rocks of fast flowing streams, and dive and stay under water at the slightest disturbance. The anole gave several chases to the insects, in all cases running after them underwater on submerged sides of boulders or logs, but in only one case I was able to photograph it as it emerged with an insect in its mouth (attached [editor’s note: to the left] is a photo of the lizard taken a second or two after it emerged from under water).
The location was a stream nr. Est. Pitilla in Guanacaste, CR (photo of the habitat attached), the coordinates are 10°59’26”N, 85°25’40”W; the observations were made May 27th, 2007.”
Juan Salvador Mendoza R.
Fundación Kamajorú para la conservación y educación ambiental, Barranquilla, Colombia.
I first became interested in arboreal lizards while working on a conservation program that took place in Corrales de San Luis, a “vereda” located in the Municipality of Tubará , department of Atlántico; Colombian Caribbean. One day with my friend Camilo Senior, while performing a day herp search through a permanent transect, he told me: “Just right from here I saw a green lizard that was feeding on termites very high in a Ceiba blanca tree (Hura crepitans).” I had been working in this locality for about four years and had never before spotted something like the lizard he was describing, so we went back to the tree and tried to take a good picture, but it was just too high for a good I.D. (Fig. 1). Those who recognize ceiba blanca´s spiny bark will know why climbing could not be an option.
Figure 1. Anolis biporcatus perched on the top of a Hura crepitans (Euphorbiaceae) tree at a height of eight meters in a dry forest located at Corrales de Sán Luis Beltran, Tubará; Colombian Caribbean, December 2009. Note that there is a termite colony in the opposite side of the branch; this individual was previously observed while feeding on termites.
After this sighting, I was really curious to know the taxonomic identity of this anole species. I had never seen something like it in my home department (Atlántico).
Karen Cusick, author of Lizards on the Fence, writes Daffodil’s Photo Blog, on which she daily chronicles in photographs the nature goings-on in her backyard. And these goings on often feature green and brown anoles, which go about their business and interact with each other on her back fence. Included are some lovely shots of displaying, eating, fighting, and more. Worth a look.
The post from a week ago Friday, August 24th, reports an encounter between a female A. carolinensis and a small A. sagrei. We’ve had a number of previous posts on AA about carolinensis-sagrei interactions and I think it’s still an open question how often the two species are actively aggressive to each other. In this light, Karen’s observations were interesting, and she has provided some photos. Here’s her report:
We’ve discussed anole nectarivory here before, but if you had any doubts, this should satisfy them.
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