On the Tropical Herping website, Lucas Bustamante provides a report–accompanied by gorgeous photographs–of the seven species of anoles, as well as other reptiles and amphibians, found on a Tropical Herping field trip to Chical, a frontier site near the border of Ecuador and Colombia where the faunas of the Chocoan lowlands and the Andes meet. The diversity of species found on the trip was spectacular, but Bustamante aptly noted that the “anoles were the highlight.”
My first thawed hatchling, Mr. Freeze, moments after emerging with the desire to rule the world (as soon as he got a little extra warmth from my finger)
Two weeks ago our building decided to test its emergency power generators. They assured us there should be no problems (never the case) and that electronics plugged into emergency wall sockets shouldn’t have a disruption in power while others might experience small outages that evening.
We assumed our incubator was in the emergency socket and had little concern to think that any disruption to power would cause problems. Needless to say, that was not the case. There was a surge when the power came on and according to the repair tech it fried 2 boards… however when power was restored instead of returning to its preset temp, room temp, or even remaining off, it decided to turn on and drop the temp to freezing (or below) (we are unsure of the exact temp as the display board was one of the 2 that fried). Everything inside was covered in frost and ice including the few remaining eggs I decided to spare from embryo extractions and allow to hatch for breeding next year.
In a recent post Miguel Landestoy shared a phenomenal photo of an unfortunate Anolis whitemani that met an untimely end in the dunes of Salinas, in the Dominican Republic. This got me thinking about odd anole deaths that I have seen in the field. Sometimes the cause of death is quite clear. Perhaps a limb has been torn off, or the body otherwise bears the marks of predation. On other occasions, however, how the anole met its fate appears more elusive.
Anolis carolinensis, 15 September 2011. Residential Valdosta, Georgia
After living much of my life in the anole-saturated forests and neighborhoods of central Florida, somewhere beneath the Spanish Moss, I lived and worked in Anchorage, Alaska for four years. Other than the occasional wood frog, Rana sylvatica, my interactions with reptiles and amphibians were, of course, somewhat diminished… (Plenty of moose, though. Oh yes, plenty of moose. And dogs. Lots and lots of dogs.)
Anolis carolinensis, 02 August 2011. Residential Valdosta, Georgia.
This past summer I returned to the American southeast with my family — specifically to Valdosta, Georgia. Since returning, I’ve been struck by the density of Carolina green anoles and the lack of Cuban brown anoles, Anolis sagrei. In central Florida A. sagrei is ubiquitous these days. It’s hard to find a yard where they don’t dominate the trunk-ground area. In Valdosta, however, I have yet to positively identify a single Anolis sagrei (I’ve been told by locals they are here, but in isolated pockets). My little corner of south Georgia seems to be A. carolinensis territory in most every way, every day.
Indeed, I am seeing a strong and robust number of Carolina greens hanging out low to the ground, not just in the trunks and trunk-crowns. They’re on the bushes, they’re on the screens, they’re on the grass, and they’re even on the sidewalks and driveways. Low-riders, I call them — the Carolina greens riding the ground-level, juveniles and adults.
In a way, moving to Valdosta, Georgia feels a bit like time travel. It feels like central Florida circa the mid-1980s, minus the NASCAR fetish, back when I was a hairy little rugrat chasing green anoles through my Volusia county backyard while jamming Devo on my twelve-pound Sony cassette walkman. I’d nearly forgotten what Carolina greens are like without the presence of Cuban brown anoles and scattered Star Wars action figures in the grass… but what’s been most startling is the number of green anoles I’ve seen low-riding — basking on pavement, hanging out on concrete, scampering around fallen pine needles and leaves. Given their trunk-crown ecomorphology and the dominance of Cuban brown anoles in Florida, I wasn’t prepared to see so many Carolina greens surfing the ground. Is it a seasonal climate (heat) pattern? Not sure. Time will tell and I’ll keep watching.
It’s unlikely I’ll try to get these green anoles to bite my earlobes and wear them as jewelry like I did circa 1982 (the shame!), but I am enjoying this relative sense of time-travel. I also wonder when A. sagrei will make it up here in force — and push these greens back up into the trunk-crown, if ever.
~ janson
Anolis carolinensis, 31 August 2011. Grand Bay WMA; Valdosta, Georgia
This female Anolis carolinensis has a tail that is kinked in a zig-zag fashion, starting from what seems to be the proximal autotomization point and continuing distally along the tail. The kinks are permanent. Running the tail between one’s fingers fails to smooth out the zig-zags. Have any anoleologists out there seen this growth pattern before? Any idea what might cause it? Additional photos and an x-ray are after the jump.
Snake food! A young Anolis scriptus
To revisit an earlier post, here is some more information about the Southern Bahamas Anole, Anolis scriptus. In the Turks and Caicos Islands, this species is a crucial component of the terrestrial herpetofauana… as prey for other reptiles!
Readers of this blog might wish to avoid graphic details about anoles being eaten, but it is important to reflect on the role that these species play in ecosystems and energy cycles. In the Turks and Caicos, anoles are consumed by two endemic snakes, as well as curly-tailed lizards.
Fights between male anoles in nature can get pretty serious. A few dramatic anole fight videos have already been posted on-line, including some mentioned previously on anole annals ([1], [2]). Recently, I posted photos from a fight we saw this summer on a rock along the Rio Bani between two males of A. d. ravitergum. This was the most dramatic anole fight I’ve ever seen, with the males tumbling head over heels down a boulder while locked in combat. The fight ended with one male skulking off and the other proudly displaying from atop the boulder. Now, Shea Lambert has posted his video of the fight on YouTube (Shea aptly added background music from the classic video game Mortal Kombat). This video was taken with a point and shoot digital camera, so the quality isn’t the greatest, but Shea did a great job capturing all of the acrobatics! To quote Shea immediately after the fight: “That dark anole is a straight-up ninja.”
a juvenile Anolis orcesi, in the afternoon of an all-day recording
They wake up, but hit the snooze button before they really get moving. They poop, grab something to eat, and then check out the neighborhood. They take wrong turns, and have to turn around when they reach a dead end. Young boys try to impress each other with their dewlaps. They take naps in the afternoon, and yawn throughout the day. They even sleep in the same bed, most nights.
As Jonathan Losos hinted at in an earlier post, we observed 4 Anolis orcesi individuals from dawn to dusk (12 hours!), and several more individuals for 1 to 6 hours, in the vicinity of Baeza, Ecuador. More to come after several months of video analysis!
I am irreparably fond of anoles, but I must admit that they are not the cuddliest of beasts. In fact, they can be downright unfriendly, especially with each other. The mere sight of another male sends anoles into spasms and, when not mating, males and females seem to barely tolerate each other, at best. It would seem that cuddling is best left to mammals and birds, but recent observations would indicate that even the ornery anole has a soft side.
Anolis shrevei mating pair cuddling in Valle Nuevo, Dominican Republic.
A post by Kat Wollenberg on this blog documented two Anolis etheridgei sleeping with their tails intertwined. A follow-up post by Melissa Woolley shows that Anolis gemmosus mating pairs sleep near each other, even if not touching.
But does an anole have to be asleep to show its softer side? In June 2011 I observed an Anolis shrevei mating pair in Valle Nuevo cuddle as they basked one afternoon. It is chilly at 2500 meters, even in the Dominican Republic. It had been a cold morning, and neither the sun nor the lizards had shown themselves until almost noon. But when the sun did peek out from behind the clouds, there was a mass exodus of anoles, which came out from under their rocks to take advantage of the day’s first rays. This little pair came out from under the same rock and sat together for close to an hour. They were touching each other, despite the fact that there seemed to be enough rock to go around. Whether this was coincidence or another mechanism of behavioral thermoregulation, the anoles of the chilly Cordillera Central know how to keep warm.
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