Anole Annals

AA regular James Stroud aims to find out. The following is taken from the FIU (Florida International University) News:

FIU biology student James Stroud has observed a non-native species of lizard in Bermuda, a potential problem for the island’s critically endangered Bermuda skink.

A two-year conservation project studying the island’s lizard populations led to the discovery of the Cuban brown anole, a species once rumored to inhabit the North Atlantic island, but was never verified until now.

“The Cuban brown anole most likely reached Bermuda by human transport,” said Stroud, a Ph.D. student in theKenneth Feeley Lab. “These lizards hitch rides between ports as unintended stowaways amongst cargo, usually in nursery plants and building materials. Although further research is needed to confirm it, this route of introduction seems likely.”

The introduction of the Cuban anole could pose difficulties for the endangered Bermuda skink, the island’s only native lizard species. Also known as a rock lizard, the skink is listed as critically endangered in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) Red List, the world’s authority on the conservation status of plant and animal species. According to the researchers, Cuban brown anoles excel at thriving outside of their native geographical area. The lizards can live in a variety of natural and human-made habitats, and feed on a variety of prey, potentially putting them at an advantage to other lizard species who might not be as tolerant.

“We have discovered that the Cuban brown anole does not yet overlap its distribution with the Bermuda skink,” Stroud said. “Therefore, the potential effects of the non-native brown anole on the native Bermuda skink are currently unknown. This topic forms part of our ongoing research interests in Bermuda.”

After surveying all of Bermuda, Stroud found populations of the Cuban lizard at all life stages indicating they are thriving in the central part of the island. He also found the established Jamaican anole continues to be found all over the island, but the Antiguan anole has significantly expanded into areas where the Barbadian lizards live. The discovery was made alongside former FIU doctoral student Sean Giery and Bermuda’s Department of Conservation Services.

Originating in Cuba and the Bahamas, the Cuban brown anole is one of the most widespread lizards outside of its native area with large populations found from Florida to Texas, California, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Singapore and Taiwan. Cuban brown anoles can be found in urban environments including downtown Miami and natural environments such as the Everglades. Anoles are very diverse group of lizards and about 372 species are currently known to exist.

Stroud recently traveled to Costa Rica where he conducted the first-ever study of the Cuban brown anole’s ecology and distribution in the Central American country. He is devoting his doctoral research to studying the evolution, interactions and community patterns of Anolis lizards in the tropics.

Two years ago, we reported on a lovely wedding cake with green anole atop, from the nuptial festivities of Alex Gunderson and his wife Katie. Now word comes to us of another anole wedding. AA correspondent Kristin Winchell, who doubles as a grad student in Liam Revell’s lab, was married to Jonathan Zschau this past September on Nantucket Island. As the photo above attests, the wedding cake was tastefully adorned with a bride, a groom, and an anole.

Actually, it was a double wedding. A photo of the second bride, Ms. Ann Ole, is pictured below (made by the groom’s aunt).

It’s that time of year again: The weather is getting colder, lights and trees are going up, and mulled wine and eggnog are on the menu. I’m obviously referring to the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative BIology (SICB). If you’re new to our blog, you’ll learn that SICB is a big deal here at Anole Annals. We like to keep our readers abreast of new and emerging trends in Anolis research. The upcoming SICB, which will be held from January 3rd to 7th in Portland, Oregon, will be no different from previous years. In between trying craft beers and local coffees, we’ll be busy blogging away about new studies in anole ecology, physiology, biomechanics, and evolution.

As you probably also know, anole research is on the rise. The program for the 2016 SICB meeting suggests that this trend is continuing. By my count, there will be 26 anole-related talks and posters at the upcoming meeting, so anoles will certainly have a strong presence. You can see a table with the talks and posters listed here. One of the downfalls of so many talks, however, is that it’s logistically challenging to cover everything on this blog. So, if you’re interested in reading posts from the upcoming meeting, do fill out the poll below. I recognize that there is overlap between topics, but I just want to get an idea of what priorities I should set at at the meeting. On another note, if you will be attending the meeting and you are interesting in blogging, please email me at martha.munoz@gmail.com. We are always looking for bloggers and I can help get you set up to make things easy.

Brachysaura minor is a medium-sized (60 mm SVL) agamid lizard from South Asia. It is one of very few agamids to vocalize (Vitt and Caldwell, 2014). Some individuals from this species produce a loud squeak when captured, probably as a defense.  But this species also has some unique morphological characters,  probably due to its terrestrial habit, including a stout body, short tail, short fifth toe, broad head with spines and large labial scales (Figure 1). Since its description (in 1827) this species has been placed in a variety of genera in the subfamily Agaminae based on external appearance.

Figure 1: An adult male Calotes (Brachysaura) minor from Wardhwan, Gujarat state, India.

In the recently published paper (Deepak et al, 2015), we used multiple lines of evidence (osteology, hemipenis and external morphology, and molecular phylogeny) to determine the systematic position of this species. These three lines of evidence suggest that Brachysaura minor is a Calotes and genetic data suggest that it is nested well within the widespread Asian genus Calotes which belongs to the sub family Draconinae (Figure 2).  Calotes is one of the most common agamid genera in the Indian subcontinent. Most species in this genus perch on vegetation, with some species like Calotes grandisquamis and Calotes nemoricola living higher up in the rainforest trees in the Western Ghats. Calotes minor on the other hand is a completely terrestrial species, found in open grasslands perched on small rocks.

Figure 2: Bayesian tree inferred from mtDNA data in MrBayes 3.2. The values assigned on the internodes indicate maximum likelihood bootstrap values, dark circles indicate posterior probability support above 95% and light circles indicate less than 95% probability. From Deepak et al. 2015.

A general trend in agamid lizards is that “the length of the tail does not correlate with the number of caudal vertebrae” (Moody, 1980). Interestingly, there are some outliers in this trend: the short-tailed, terrestrial Calotes minor and its very distantly related cousin from southern parts of Africa, Agama hispida, both have fewer caudal vertebrae than their sister species. The ground dwelling Moloch horridus from Australia and Xenagama batillifera from the horn of Africa also have the same range of caudal vertebrae (Moody, 1980).  Relative to body length, Calotes minor has the shortest tail length compared to many other Calotes (Figure 3A). On the other extreme, the arboreal Calotes calotes has the longest tail among Calotes (Figure 4). They live on trees in southern India and Sri Lanka.

Figure 3: Plot of body measurements of Calotes minor (blue circles (males), red circles (females)) compared to other known Calotes spp. (Blue triangles (males), red triangles (females)). Black circle sub-adult male. A) SVL versus tail length of 17 out of the 25 described species of Calotes. B) SVL versus fifth toe length of 9 out of the 25 described species of Calotes.

While the above pattern may suggest that short tails have evolved repeatedly in terrestrial agamids, both Sitana ponticeriana and Otocryptis wiegmanni, which are terrestrial, have very long tails. However, another trait is shared by the terrestrial Sitana and Otocryptis, namely the extreme reduction (Otocryptis) or loss (Sitana) of the fifth toe. Therefore, we decided to look at the fifth toe length in relation to SVL in Calotes minor as well. The completely terrestrial Calotes minor has the shortest fifth toe compared to many of its arboreal sisters (Figure 3B). In western India and parts of central India, there are vast expanses of open grasslands with only few rocks embedded in it and Calotes minor may have evolved to occupy these niches.

Figure 4: Calotes calotes from Rameshwaram Island, Tamil Nadu state, India.

Citations:

Moody, S.M.(1980): Phylogenetic and historical biogeographical relationship of the genera in the family Agamidae (Reptilia: Lacertilia)  – Thesis, The  University  of  Michigan,  Michigan, 373 pp.

Vitt, L.J.  and J.P. Caldwell. (2013). Herpetology, Fourth Edition: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles 4th Edition. Academic Press, San Diego.

Russell A.P. and Rewcastle S.C. (1979): Digital reduction in Sitana (Reptilia: Agamidae) and the dual roles of the fifth metatarsal in lizards. Canadian Journal of Zoology 57: 1129-1135.

Don’t forget to submit your votes for the Anole Annals Photo Contest 2015! The poll will close THIS THURSDAY, December 3, so make sure you get your votes in before then. Anole Annals 2016 calendars with the winning 12 photos  will be available for purchase soon after!

Anolis toldo. Photo by Luis Diaz.

Luis Diaz reported on Facebook the discovery of the lizard shown above. He reports: “Anolis toldo, adult female; third individual of the species known and first specimen in the National Museum of Natural History of Cuba. The discovery of this specimen was a result of the joint expedition by the National Museum of Natural History of Cuba and the American Museum of Natural History. It was found on October 19, 2015, at night, on a tree fern in a new location (outside the only known: the plateau of El Toldo ). This is one of the few photos of the species.” The photo was tagged aat Alejandro de Humboldt National Park.

Thank you to everyone who submitted photos for the AA 2015 contest, we received so many amazing shots! We’ve narrowed it down to the top 40, and now it’s time to vote! Choose your 5 favorites in the poll below.

It’s just come to AA‘s attention that the University of Texas School of Journalism posted an article on invasive anoles in Texas, featuring Yoel Stuart. Check out the article online, and the nifty, albeit chameleon-tainted, poster below.

I’m sure there’s a story behind this photo circulating on Facebook, but I don’t know what it is. Anyone care to speculate?