Anole Annals

Though SICB 2014 is positively teeming with cool anole talks and posters, there are plenty of other lizards that are getting a lot of attention. Yesterday, I happened upon a fascinating talk by Travis Hagey,  a grad student at the University of Idaho, titled “How geckos stick in nature: ecology and biomechanics of gecko feet.”

Strophurus taenicauda, a grass-bush-like gecko. Photo by Dave Fleming.

Addressing an overflowing room, Hagey used the dramatic diversity of gecko toepads to motivate his central question–can this diversity in toepad morphology be explained by the habitat preferences and perch-use behaviour of these geckos in nature? But going down the path of ecomorphology led to a comparison with anoles: if gecko toepads correlate with their habitat, then what about gecko limb-lengths? Using relationships between limb morphology and perch-type from arboreal anoles as well as rock-dwelling skinks, Hagey left for Queensland, Australia, with three predictions:

1. Geckos with shorter limbs would perch on narrower surfaces

2. Geckos with longer limbs would perch on rocks

3. Geckos with higher clinging ability would perch on steeper perches.

Utilizing a simple measure of lizard clinging ability (the “toe detachment angle,” which is the angle of the clinging surface away from vertical at which a lizard can no longer cling), as well as measuring perch characteristics and limb morphology for 13 species of geckos, Hagey began to look at patterns of ecomorphology. He found that different species occupied dramatically different habitats, with specialization even within the arboreal niche. Here’s what he found for each prediction:

1. Contrary to expectations, lizards perching on narrower surfaces had relatively longer limbs than average.

2. Having longer upper legs, however, correlated with rock use.

3. A higher clinging ability was correlated with having longer toes and shorter limbs. There was a qualitative or clade-specific relationship between the use of vertical perches and higher clinging ability.

Pseudothecadactylus australis, a crown-giant-like gecko. Photo from www.gondwanareptileproductions.com

Hagey speculated about the relationship between perch width and limb length in geckos, where he found the opposite pattern from anoles. One distinct possibility is that geckos have, on average, shorter limbs than anoles, meaning that a relatively long-limbed gecko and a relatively short-limbed anole may actually have the same body shape. Hagey is planning a taxonomically broad comparison of body shape and perch use, and hopes to include both geckos and anoles in this dataset–an exciting prospect that could shed light on some remarkable trans-continental convergences in lizard ecomorphology.

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LOOKSGOODONU

This is not Anolis roosevelti. No pictures of that species in life exist. But it probably looked pretty similar to this brown-phase Anolis cuvieri. Photo by Alejandro Sanchez.

Anolis roosevelti, the giant anole of Culebra and Vieques, is famous in anole circles. The only Caribbean species thought to possibly be extinct, the species has not been seen since 1932.

Recently I learned of a report of an expedition to Culebra to track down the wily saurian, written by noted author and mycologist Lawrence Millman. As you’ll see, the expedition was a success, but perhaps not in the way you expect.

A Hunt for the T. rex of Anole Lizards: A Trip to Puerto Rico in Search of a Giant Shrinking Reptile.

Christian Science Monitor, July 12, 2007

“Not too long ago I picked up an old travel book about Puerto Rico and read of a rare giant lizard, Anolis roosevelti, on the island of Culebra.
“Fame will visit anyone who finds this elusive creature,” the author of the book proclaimed. Since Fame had thus far given me a rather wide berth, I hopped a plane to San Juan and then a smaller plane to Culebra.
By the time I arrived on the island, the lizard had shrunk. The book had described it as four feet long, but the local Fish and Wildlife person told me that it was no more than a foot long from snout to vent – hardly competition for a T. rex. Still, A. roosevelti is a T. rex compared with other anoles, which are among the smallest of all lizards.
I also learned that this giant among anoles had not been sighted since 1932. Not officially sighted, that is. But there were anecdotal reports of it being seen in the forested areas on Monte Resaca, Culebra’s highest summit (height: 650 feet), as recently as a few years ago.
So I drove to the base of Monte Resaca and started bushwhacking.
Trusting in serendipity, I expected to see the anole in question basking on every boulder as well as ascending every gumbo-limbo tree. I was so intent on my search that I lost all sense of direction and ended up in someone’s backyard.
A Culebran tending his garden looked up at me in surprise. My usual ploy when I trespass like this is to advance confidently toward the person, shake his hand, and announce in a punctilious English accent: “Dr. Basil Withers of the British Antarctic Survey. Jolly good to meet you, old chap.”
Since this ploy would not work in the subtropics, I said, “Hello, Señor. Seen any big lagartos around here lately?”
“Sí,” the man replied. “All the time.”
“What’s their habitat?” I asked excitedly.
“In my bathroom,” he answered. He invited me in, where I saw the lagartos skittering around on the wall. They were geckos, not anoles, and they weren’t even all that big.
Serendipity had gotten me nowhere, so I got in touch with Beverly Macintyre, who knew the island’s backcountry intimately. She mentioned a particular boulder canyon on Monte Resaca, just the sort of place, she said, where a giant anole might hang out. Then she referred to recent development on Culebra; if it continued at its current breakneck pace, she said, a lot more creatures than A. roosevelti would be either endangered or extinct.
In our search for the lizard, Beverly and I entered not so much the forest primeval as the forest prickly. Ground-hugging cacti jabbed us, mesquite bushes stabbed us, saw-toothed bromeliads slashed at us, and a plant known locally as Fire Man (Tragia volubilis) delivered stings that make the stings of a stinging nettle seem positively genteel.
And to add to it, at one point I was gazing up at what turned out to be a green tree iguana and walked into a barbed wire fence.
We did not see a giant anole. We did not even see one of the small anoles that reputedly were common on the island. But near the end of our trek, we did witness this unusual sight: a man on a horse with reins in one hand and a cellphone in the other.
The next morning, as I took a respite from my search, I began noticing other curious sights. A sign in a shop window in Dewey, the island’s only town, said: “Open Some Days, Closed Others.” A road sign indicated Termina Carretera (End of Road) when, in fact, the road did not end at all.
And in the afternoon, I was sitting on Flamenco Beach when a person in an old-fashioned diving bell emerged from the sea. At the north end of the beach, there was a tank left over from the days when the US Navy used Culebra for war games; in this setting, it had a very surreal quality.
I began to think that I had fetched up on some sort of Caribbean fantasy island – an ideal habitat for, among other things, an incredible shrinking lizard.
Several days later, I still hadn’t found the anole in question. My trip was coming to an end, so I asked Teresa Tallevast, the manager of the Culebra National Wildlife Refuge, if there was any area I might have overlooked. She suggested that I check out the trail that wound down from Monte Resaca to Playa Resaca.
Soon I was hiking on this steep trail. Every once in a while I would stop and peer into the surrounding bush. At one point I thought I saw a finned reptilian tail disappear into a tangle of mesquite, but that could have been my imagination … or another iguana.
At the bottom, the trail meandered through a labyrinth of white mangroves. I looked up at the trees’ gnarled branches and then down at their arching prop roots.
Still no anole.
At last I came out on Playa Resaca, a long, yellow swath of sand where I was the only person in sight. The sun was blisteringly hot, but I didn’t go for a swim. Resaca means undertow in Spanish, and if I had gone swimming, I might have washed ashore on the west coast of Africa or, at the very least, in the Virgin Islands.
Suddenly I saw what appeared to be the tread marks of an 18-wheeler in the sand. I was outraged. But then I realized that the tread marks were actually the flipper imprints of a female leatherback turtle who’d plodded ashore the night before to lay her eggs. Weighing a thousand pounds or more, such creatures are the reptilian equivalent of giant rigs; unlike those rigs, however, leatherbacks are an endangered species. I counted myself extremely fortunate to see even the tracks of one.
And so it was that my quest for a rare reptile on Culebra ended in success.”

Anolis grahami in the Hellshire Hills

Today, the genus Anolis represents the most common of Jamaica’s reptiles. Indeed, most Jamaican anoles are quite ubiquitous throughout the island, but the abundance of these and other small lizards  is misleading. Many of Jamaica’s reptiles, several of which are endemic to the island, are in immediate danger of extinction. Indeed the Jamaican herpetofauna is one of the most threatened in the entire Caribbean and several species have already been lost; Many more are now under threat under threat due to  development in Jamaica’s  protected habitats.

Map showing the major protected areas and  reserves of Jamaica
source: http://inweh.unu.edu/jamaica-mpa/

Over the years  numerous protected areas have been established across Jamaica  with the intent of preserving its endemic biodiversity, particularly birds, mammals and reptiles. Two of these areas, the Black River Morass and Portland Bight Protected Area,  are significant refuges for a large number of Jamaica’s threatened endemic reptiles.

Juvenile American crocodile.Crocodylus acutus. A large population of this threatened species currently inhabits the Black River Morass
Crocodylus acutus. Photo by author

By far the most important nature reserve in Jamaica is the Portland Bight Protected Area (PBPA) created by the Jamaican government in 1999. It is the largest protected area in Jamaica and spans approximately 1,880 square kilometers of wetlands, coastal mangroves and coastal dry forests, all three of which are important threatened ecosystems. Although the first priority in forming the protected area was to protect the coral reefs found within, it also serves to protect vulnerable and endemic species. The PBPA encompasses the Hellshire Hills and Portland ridge in the parishes of St. Catherine  and Clarendon respectively; these are the two largest areas of dry forests remaining on Jamaica and form one of the largest areas of relatively intact tropical limestone forests in entire Caribbean.

The coastal dry forests of the Hellshire Hills, part of the Portland Bight Protected Area.
Source: Joe Burgess’s Flickr page

The PBPA  is a reserve for several threatened species of plants and animals and serves as the last refuge for several of Jamaica’s rarest reptiles including the Jamaican iguana, Cyclura collei, which with a global population of 150 lizards is one of the rarest reptiles in the world. The area is also home to the Jamaican skink,  Mabuya fulgida, and the small recently rediscovered blue-tailed galliwasp, Celestus duquesneyi,  both of which have extremely limited distributions outside of the Hellshire Hills, as well as the endangered Jamaican  boa, Chilabothrus subflavus,  which is patchily distributed throughout the Island. The PBPA also encompasses several offshore cays including Little Goat island and Great Goat Island; The  Jamaican government had plans to eradicate the mongoose as well as the feral goats from the Goat islands after which suitable organisms from the mainland dry forests would be transplanted onto the islands in an effort to preserve the endemic dry forest biodiversity. This plan however seems to have hit a a monumental roadblock.

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