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.
Dewlap variation in Anolis apletophallus (formerly, A. limifrons). Photo courtesy Jessica Stapley.
Jessica Stapley writes:
I am a Marie Curie Postdoctoral fellow co-hosted by the University of Sheffield and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. I have just started a new project aimed at identifying loci underlying Anolis dewlap colour pattern.
Understanding the evolution and maintenance of phenotypic variation is a major goal in evolutionary biology. Addressing this goal ultimately requires linking molecular genetic variation to phenotypic variation, but identifying the genes responsible for important traits has been a major challenge in non-model organisms. Recent advances in DNA sequencing technology however, have revolutionized the development of genomic resources and paved the way for major advances in linking phenotype and genotype in non-model organisms.
During a visit to New Orleans last month , I came across this little fellow.
Young male Anolis carolinensis, Washington Square, New Orleans, 30 December 2010
He was about 2 feet up on some broad-leaved plants planted around a tree in Washington Park, at the corner of Frenchmen and Royal Streets in Faubourg Marigny, just east of the French Quarter. Here’s an overview of the Square looking east, taken from about where the lizard was found.
Washington Square, New Orleans, 30 December 2010
I was actually a little surprised to find carolinensis, rather than sagrei. Anolis sagrei is well known as a good colonizer, both natural and introduced, and is now known from Florida, Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana, with stragglers reported as far north as Virginia. I was once given a tiny baby anole that was caught on a windowsill in Cambridge, Massachusetts (!) that I believe was this species; it had probably arrived as an egg in the soil of a houseplant.
Nat Geo just posted an article on the rediscovery of six species of Haitian frogs thought to be extinct. This seemed like a good excuse to re-tell the story of the recent rediscovery of Anolis eugenegrahami from Haiti. This remarkable “semi-aquatic” anole, known from only a single, highly degraded locality, had not been seen in quite some time until an intrepid team of herpetologists set out to look for them. Read what they found here. Now, if only someone could find A. darlingtoni….
More recently, 3 Anolis coelestinus have been captured in the vicinity of a reptile importer in Broward Co. I captured a large male 3 weeks ago, but did not see any other individuals in or around the area. We are uncertain if this species was released (or escaped) in large enough numbers to become established.
These and 75 other documented species will be discussed in a soon to be submitted paper, “A complete list of verified non-indigenous amphibians and reptiles in Florida through 2010: Outlining the invasion process and identifying invasion pathways and stages.”
Attached images are of anoles I collected in Florida.
View of the defunct capital Plymouth as seen from the sea following dome collapse in January 2010
In 1493 Christopher Columbus named it after a mountain in northeastern Spain because he found the island to be as lush and green as the Catalonian province. It’s nicknamed the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean because its early Irish settlers found it reminiscent of their green coasts. But 500 years later most of the Lesser Antillean island of Montserrat has been anything but green. Its volcano became active again in 1995 and nearly two decades of periodic pyroclastic flows, lahars (mudflows with volcanic materials), as well as gas and ash venting have converted much of the island, especially the southern half, to a gray wasteland. The old capital of Plymouth, in fact, is covered under 40 feet of mud and ash. From the nearby town of Richmond Hill, which is about as close as you can get without being arrested (I’ve tried), you can see old sugar mills and three-story boulders that the volcano tossed all the way to Plymouth mixed together in a strange melange.
In the Dominican countryside, it is widely rumored that you can get worms from the bite of the salta cocote (a.k.a. a crown giant anole belonging to the ricordii group). It’s easy to see how this rumor might have gotten started when you look in the mouth of a salta cocote! The A. ricordii in the photo above had a large cluster of maggots in its mouth, as did other individuals from the same locality. These maggots have some narly teeth that they seemingly use to dig into the flesh on the back of the lizards throat. We’re taking measures to identify these larvae now, but perhaps somebody can save us the trouble of doing this work ourselves – have these buggers been described?
Alexis Harrison and I have spent the last two days on Grand Cayman collecting tail tips from Anolis sagrei. During our work, we’ve seen quite a few A. conspersus. Anolis conspersus is nested within the Jamaican A. grahami, splitting away approximately 2.5 to 3 million years ago when it colonized Grand Cayman. Both species vary in body color across their range from brown to drab green to emerald green to blue green with white mottling.
They are very different, however, in the dewlap. Anolis grahami’s dewlap reflects strongly in the long wavelengths, being orange with a yellow margin. The dewlap of A. conspersus, on the other hand, reflects in short wavelengths being blue and UV-bright.
Anolis grahami - Jamaica
Anolis conspersus - Grand Cayman
Over the last half-century, Anolis sagrei sagrei, a Cuban native, has become a global citizen. Likely as a stowaway in agricultural trade shipments, it has traveled to near-Cuba places like Florida, Jamaica, and Grand Cayman. It has gone as far Hawaii, Guam, and Taiwan. It is a stout lizard, males about 60mm long, brown in body color with a deep red dewlap bordered by a yellow margin. Jason Kolbe’s research documented the origin and spread of invasive populations of this subspecies around the globe.
Another subspecies of A. sagrei, A. sagrei luteosignifer, is endemic to Cayman Brac, the easternmost of the three Cayman Islands islands. On Brac, A. s. luteosignifer has evolved a mustard-yellow dewlap, in stark contrast to the red dewlap of A. s. sagrei.
During recent fieldwork with several graduate students, the topic of lizard noosing materials came up. I was accused of being an old fogey for my continued use of dental floss to make my nooses. By contrast, these young whippersnappers used some yellow stuff, pictured above. I can’t remember what it is, but it seems all the rage these days. I know that other people use various types of fishing line (I think the yellow stuff is one such type), and that everyone has their own preference. Of course, lizard noosing has doubtless been independently invented many times in various places around the world with all kinds of materials. I’ve seen local boys use blades of grass—quite effective!—in several places in the Caribbean, and once in Sri Lanka, I saw the locals using copper wire on a Calotes (not recommended). So, given all these options, what are the advantages and disadvantages of various noose materials?
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