Anole Annals

Hi everyone, I apologise for the repeat post. As mentioned by Martha, it may not have been obvious from the initial post that there was a survey inside!

So, please forgive me while I repost with an amended title in the hope of getting a few more poll participants. We are only just into double figures (including only 3 of you who have previously published on the subject) – surely we can do better than that! Thank you to everyone that has already contributed. I will present the results in a follow up post in week or so depending on participant activity.

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One of the age old questions in anole morphology is at what point do you stop counting lamellae on the toepad?

Without giving any more information on various techniques or methods, I thought it would be interesting to ask the AA community their personal opinions. Below I have attached a flatbed scan of a toepad. Could people please fill out the corresponding poll below, and I will present the results in a follow up post!

Lamellae numbered 1-51 on the 4th digit of an Anolis lizard hindfoot

Gunther Kōhler and colleagues have just published in Zootaxa a new revision of some Mexican anoles, including the description of six new species and the sinking of one species. Rather than describing the work, I think it would be more effective to present the title and abstract:

A revision of the Mexican Anolis (Reptilia, Squamata, Dactyloidae) from the Pacific versant west of the Isthmus de Tehuantepec in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla, with the description of six new species

GUNTHER KÖHLER1, RAÚL GÓMEZ TREJO PÉREZ, CLAUS BO P. PETERSEN & FAUSTO R. MÉNDEZ DE LA CRUZ

We revise the species of anoles occurring along the Pacific versant of Mexico west of the Isthmus de Tehuantepec in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla. Based on our analyses of morphological and molecular genetic data, we recognize 21 species, six of which we describe as new (i.e., Anolis carlliebi sp. nov., A. immaculogularis sp. nov., A. nietoi sp. nov., A. sacamecatensis sp. nov., A. stevepoei sp. nov., and A. zapotecorum sp. nov.). Furthermore, we synonymize Anolis forbesi Smith & Van Gelder 1955 with Anolis microlepidotus Davis 1954. Of the recognized species, six have smooth ventral scales (i.e., Anolis dunni, A. gadovii, A. liogaster, A. omiltemanus, A. peucephilus, and A. taylori) and 14 have keeled ventral scales (i.e., A. boulengerianus, A. carlliebi, A. immaculogularis, A. megapholidotus, A. microlepidotus, A. nebuloides, A. nebulosus, A. nietoi, A. quercorum, A. sacamecatensis, A. stevepoei, A. subocularis, A. unilobatus, and A. zapotecorum). In one species, A. macrinii, the ventral scales vary from smooth to weakly keeled. For each species we provide color descriptions in life, color photographs in life, descriptions and illustration of hemipenis morphology (if available), descrip-tion of external morphology, distribution maps based on the specimens examined, comments on the conservation status, and natural history notes. Finally, we provide a dichotomous key for the identification of the 21 species of anoles occurring along the Pacific versant of Mexico west of the Isthmus de Tehuantepec in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla.

Karen Cusick, author of  Lizards on the Fence and tender of Daffodil’s Photo Blog, writes:

You may remember that the Wild Amelia Nature Festival (Amelia Island, FL–just north of where I live) chose the green anole as their Critter of the Year for 2015. I was looking at the Wild Amelia website and they are already starting to gear up for the festival, which will be held May 15-17. They’ve designed a new website logo featuring a green anole, and there are going to be tee shirts with the logo. The website button to buy a tee shirt doesn’t work yet, but that should be fixed as the festival gets closer. I’m going to check on that.

There’s only a small size image of the logo so far, but I’m attaching it anyway. It looks like it’ll be a nice shirt.

They’ve scheduled a series of nature-based seminars in the months leading up to the festival, and the last one is May 12, when the director of the Jacksonville Zoo, Tony Vecchio, will give a presentation about the green anole and the Zoo.

I’ll let you know if I hear any more anole-related news about the festival!

In a recent paper in Herpetology Notes, de Freitas et al. report the third specimen of the species, the first from Brazil and the first in which a living specimen is illustrated.

Look at that schnoz! Reminiscent of some members of the carolinensis species group, such as AA regular A. maynardi from the Cayman Islands.

Here’s the illustration from Ernest Williams’ 1965 description in Breviora.

Photo tweeted by Sarah Knutie. Have we talked about cannibalism previously on AA? A quick search on our search bar finds two hits, one noting such tendencies in knight anoles, the other not very specific. Who’s seen it?

Jessica Alfoldi of the Broad Institute writes:

“Matthew Breen from NCSU has a copy of the Anolis BAC library used in the sequencing and anchoring of the reference Anolis genome:CHORI-318: Green Anole Lizard . He unfortunately no longer has room for it, and will have to throw it out very soon unless someone else can give it a new home. If you would like to have a copy of this BAC library, please email me back as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Jessica”

Lourdes Rodriguez Schettino speaking at the 2009 Anolis symposium

Symposia on anole biology have been held three times in the last 25 years. First, in 1989 as part of the ASIH meetings in San Francisco, then in 1999 in conjunction with the herpetology meetings at Penn State, and most recently as a stand-alone meeting at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard in 2009. These meetings have been a great success–the MCZ meeting was attended by more than 125 people (take a photographic trip down Memory Lane).

The time has come to think about the next Anolis Symposium. The meeting organizers have settled on 2016 in Miami. We’re considering a number of great venues there, so it should be a fun, anole-filled event, easily accessible for anole researchers from all over.

The question is: when should the symposium be held? In January, right after the holidays? February, in the heart of winter? August, right after the Ecological Society of America meeting in Fort Lauderdale? October, like the last meeting?

We’re going to try to pick the date that works best for most potential attendees, so please comment below and let us know which dates are good or bad, and why.