Anole Annals

A message from Monty Harper, the genius behind Anole in Love:

We are down to our last day and a half.

We are 44% funded. We need $5,600 more in pledges to make this CD happen.

That sounds like a lot. But consider…

Kickstarter says the average pledge amount is $70. If each of us – there are 80 backers right now! – if each of us was to bring in just one additional backer today, that could mean $5,600 in additional pledges, which is exactly what we need!

Even if Kickstarter’s average is a bit high for this project, 80 additional backers today would put us within sight of the goal, and would make tomorrow a very exciting day!

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring in at least one additional backer today.

What tools have you with which to accomplish this Herculean task, you ask?

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, email lists – these are great, but…

A personal email, a text, a phone call, a (gasp) face-to-face conversation! – these are very effective for engaging one person. Who do you know that would really appreciate great kid-friendly science music? A parent, an educator, a librarian, a scientist?

Here are some general talking points –

Any pledge of $5 or more gets you an immediate download of 12 science songs
The new songs are all written and waiting to be recorded
These songs are inspired by conversations with scientists – they are unique in their focus on the scientific process
The funding is necessary for hiring musicians and studio time, paying for design and duplication
Public libraries are using science as a theme this summer – here is a chance to get some really good material into the hands of people motivated to use it with kids
If we don’t reach the funding goal, the CD will be put on hold, and who knows when or if it will ever get made?

Match a song to the person – who do you know that would be excited about one of these song topics?

“Vaccination!” – a pro-vaccination anthem!
“Anole in Love” and “My One and Only Vole” – science themed love songs!
“Left Brain” and “This Is Your Brain on Music” – brain science!
“Quarks and Electrons” – particle physics, the nature of the universe!
“Citizen Scientist” – citizen science is huge right now!
“Photosynthesis,” “Green Footprint,” and “Rustbusters” – alternative energy!
“Psychology” and “Popular” – psychology!
“What Goes On?” – ecology!
“Predators, Prey, and the Games They Play” – evolution!
“Fizz Boom Read” – a theme song for 2014 summer reading!

Most of these songs are up on YouTube now:

One other tool I can give you is – images to share on social media. You can look for these on my facebook feed, or download and post them yourself:

Just click to get the full-sized image.

Nectivory in Anolis evermanni

By K.Ra

On December 11, 2013

In All Posts

These stunning images of Puerto Rican emerald anoles, Anolis evermanni, drinking nectar are from the website of Alfredo D.Colón Archilla who has also published an account of the observations.
I highly recommend his website for anyone interested in some great photos of Puerto Rican herps for use in future posts; you can also read about how he uses his photos elsewhere, including on EOL, on the home page.
As an added bonus here is a much lower quality photo of Anolis grahami doing the same thing.

Editor’s note: we’ve published on anole nectivory before, most recently here.

A Beatlesque Song about Lizards in Love

By Jonathan Losos

On December 10, 2013

In Anole Art, Literature, and Humor

You must click on this link and listen to the song (click the red circle in the upper left corner of the page). Then come back here and read the rest.

Anole In Love – The song the Beatles would have written if they were green anoles! This lovely ballad is the work of Monty Harper, who writes: “I write songs that convey what I find awesome about science: the questions, the methods, the passion, dedication, and creativity of the people who do it. My inspiration comes from speaking directly with scientists about their latest research projects.”

This has Top 40 written all over it, all it needs to do is get produced. Help make it happen by going to Monty’s Kickstarter page and making a donation. But, hurry–the deadline is Friday.

Tail Loss and Locomotor Performance

By Eric McElroy

On December 10, 2013

In New Research

The long-tailed Asian lacertid lizard, Takydromus sexlineatus. Photo by John White.

Tail loss (aututomy) is one of the more amazing things done by lizards, but for for me it’s a frustrating reality of studying the physiology of sprinting because rough handling (by me when I was a beginning Ph.D. student and now in my lab by some undergrads) results in a lost tail and thus changed locomotor mechanics. But this frustration turned to fascination when I began studying locomotion in Takydromus sexlineatus. This species is pretty special as it holds the distinction of having the longest tail (relative to snout-vent length) of any lizard.

So I had to pull the tail off and measure how locomotion was changed. This then snowballed into studying the effect of autotomy in Anolis carolinensis and then a collaboration with Philip Bergmann to more broadly address how autotomy influences locomotor performance in lizards by using a meta-analysis of the published literature. We showed that longer tails result in a more drastic change in performance for all lizards studied except the two Takydromus species…so we are still left wondering what that huge tail does!

The result was a talk at the World Congress of Herpetology in Vancouver and a publication in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology as part of a special issue on Tail Loss in Lizards, organized by Tim Higham and Tony Russell.

Grass anoles have really really long tails too….I wonder how those tails are used? Convergence between Takydromus and Grass Anoles? E.N. Arnold did a lot of work on Takydromus and hypothesized that the tail aids in grass-swimming. I have observed this species stand up bipedally and use the tail as a prop (like Varanus). Thoughts?

New Paper on the Little Known Large Mexican Anolis macrinii

By Jonathan Losos

On December 9, 2013

In New Research

Almost nothing is known about Anolis macrinii, which is a little surprising because it is rather large (nearly 100 mm snout-vent length) and apparently locally moderately abundant. However, it’s small, localized range in Oaxaca, Mexico is no doubt the explanation. In any case, now a bit more is known, thanks to a recent paper by Gunther Köhler and colleagues in Breviora (freely available on the MCZ publications website).

The paper includes a detailed morphological description of the species, as well as notes on natural history and conservation status. Most interesting to me is the sexual dimorphism in dewlap size (males on top above, females below), which we have discussed in previous posts, and the aberrant patterning of one juvenile individual (right).

Here’s the abstract:

During three short visits to the coffee-growing region in the hills north of Pochutla (Oaxaca, Mexico), we observed Anolis macrinii in its natural habitat. The species appeared to be relatively abundant, and we collected 12 individuals, including several adult males. The holotype of this species was reported erroneously to be an adult male but actually is a female. The confusion might have arisen from the moderate-sized dewlap present in adult females. However, males have a very large dewlap and a pair of moderately to greatly enlarged postcloacal scales. We provide color descriptions in life for three individuals, color photographs in life, description and illustration of hemipenis morphology, and some natural history notes. Finally, we discuss the conservation status of this species.

Montserrat: Caribbean Herpetofauna Island Of The Day

By Yoel Stuart

On December 8, 2013

In All Posts

Anolis lividus. Photo by Jonathan Losos

Situated at the northern end of the the Lesser Antillean island chain, Montserrat is home to a number of interesting herps, including the endemic galliwasp Diploglossus montisserrati, the endemic skink Mabuya montserratae, and the endemic anole Anolis lividus. This anole was bravely investigated and reported on by Anole Annals’ intrepid anoleologist Martha Munoz. If your inquiry into the reason I used the words “bravely” and “intrepid” has left you a little lost, the smoke Montserrat is emitting from its active volcano will drag you to the answer: Martha was on the island when the Soufrière Hills dome collapsed and spewed volcanic ash 9 miles skyward!

Collapse of the dome sends ash skywards. January 2010. Photo by Martha Munoz.

The view from space. Image from NASA.

More Cuban anoles to ID

By Peter Uetz

On December 7, 2013

In All Posts

I got these photos of Cuban anoles from Allan Finlayson, taken around Las Terrazas, Artemisia. Can anybody help with their IDs? Thanks!

P.S.: Sorry, there are no better photos, I believe. Locality: http://goo.gl/maps/oHfAS

An Odd Interaction in Sitana and Anolis

By Ambika Kamath

On December 6, 2013

In Natural History Observations

When videotaping Sitana last year, I noticed an odd interaction between a male and female, wherein the female suddenly ran towards the male, and after he displayed a little bit at her, she sat on him. She remained there for a couple of minutes, and then ran away.

Anolis cristatellus female sitting on male (photo by Kristin Winchell)

I had no idea what was happening–there were at least two more females in the vicinity, and I wondered if this sitting behaviour was an instance of female competition over the male. But I didn’t see the behaviour again, and thought no more of it until Kristin Winchell mentioned that she had seen similar behaviour in her captive Anolis cristatellus, being housed in male-female pairs for a common garden experiment. Moreover, she has noticed the same pairs repeatedly engaging in such interactions. Any thoughts on what might be going on?

Anolis cristatellus female sitting on male (photo by Kristin Winchell)

SICB 2014: You Decide What To Read About

By Martha Muñoz

On December 5, 2013

In New Research

When AA contributors attend scientific conferences, we try our best to post about as many talks and posters as we can visit, but inevitably we simply can’t visit them all. I will be attending the annual meeting for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology this upcoming January. This will be the third consecutive year in which I blog about SICB and I want to try a different approach this time. Rather than choosing the talks and posters myself, I want to get your input on what types of research most interest you. If you like to read about new research presented at conferences, then please take the survey provided below. Choose up to three different subject matters and I’ll decide my schedule based on the results. You can access a list of anole-related presentations here. Most presentations can fit into more than one category, but I just want a general idea of what most interests the readers. Now go vote!

Explaining Changes To Species Names In Nicholson et al. 2012

By Rich Glor

On December 4, 2013

In Ask the Experts, New Research

I’m a little embarrassed to be writing this post, but I’m still unable to figure out some of the proposed changes to anole binomials in Nicholson et al.’s (2012) taxonomic revision of Anolis. I’m a real novice with implementation of “The Code” and the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, so I’m looking for a bit of help from AA readers who are more expert than I.

I understand that some of Nicholson et al.’s proposed changes to specific epithets are necessitated by the fact that their taxonomic revision would change the gender of generic epithets (e.g., Anolis chlorocyanus would be Deiroptyx chlorocyana due to the fact that Anolis is masculine and Deiroptyx is feminine). These types of changes are demanded by The Code’s article 31.2. However, I am struggling to understand Nicholson et al.’s proposed changes to twelve binomials that – to my novice eyes – do not appear to be due strictly to changes in the gender of generic epithets (see table below). Because the authors of this paper include leading authorities on taxonomy and nomenclature, I trust that these changes are not simply the result of typographical errors.

In most cases cited in my table, Nicholson et al. add or change vowels in the correct original spellings of species epithets, where the “correct original spelling” is defined under The Code as “the spelling used in the work in which the name was established.” Based on my amateur reading of The Code, changes to correct original spellings are not permitted unless it can be shown that the original spelling was inadvertently incorrect due to a printer’s error or related mistakes unrelated to the authors lack of familiarity with Latin (ICZN, Article 32). Can somebody enlighten me about which articles in the code govern the changes in the table below?

In this table, I provide the genus to which Nicholson et al. assign each species, the gender of this genus, the exact spelling for the specific epithet used in their manuscript, the spelling of the specific epithet from the Reptile Database, the spelling of the specific epithet from the original publication (NAs indicate that I have yet to check the original citation⁴), the type of change that Nicholson et al. have proposed, and the citation of the original description. Below the table, I provide some additional details about three specific cases. Thanks in advance for your help.

Genus	Gender	Nicholson et al.	Reptile Database	Original Spelling	Change	Description Citation
Anolis	Masculine	anfilioquioi	anfiloquioi	anfiloquioi	o to io	Garrido 1980
Anolis	Masculine	maclientus	macilentus	macilentus	e to ie	Garrido and Hedges 1992
Anolis	Masculine	pumilis	pumilus	pumilus⁴	u to i	Garrido 1988
Ctenonotus	Masculine	monoensis	monensis	monensis⁴	e to oe	Stejneger 1904
Ctenonotus	Masculine	nubilis	nubilus	nubilus⁴	u to i	Garman 1887
Dactyloa	Feminine	anatolorus	anatoloros	anatoloros	o to u	Ugueto et al. 2007
Dactyloa	Feminine	euskalerrari	euskalerriari	euskalerriari	ia to a	Barros et al. 1996
Deiroptyx	Feminine	domincanus [see comments for correction and clarification]	dominicanus	dominicanus	delete i	Rieppel 1980 [Note: the original version of this post incorrectly referenced de Quieroz et al. 1998]
Norops¹	Masculine	forbesi	forbesorum	forbesi	si to sorum	Smith & Van Gelder 1955
Norops	Masculine	schiedei [see comments]	schiedii	schiedii⁴	ei to ii	Wiegmann 1834
Norops²	Masculine	williamsi	williamsii	williamsii	ii to i	Bocourt 1870
Norpos³	?	parvicirculatus	parvicirculata	parvicirculata⁴	rops to rpos and a to us	Alvarex del Toro & Smith 1956

I have a bit more information about three cases in this table.

1. Anolis forbesi is the original spelling in Smith and Van Gelder (1955), but Michels and Bauer (2004) corrected this name to Anolis forbesorum due to the fact that this species is named after more than one person. Michels and Bauer (2004) suggest that this change is a “justified emendation” under Articles 31.1.2-3 and 33.2.2 of The Code. We know that at least one author of Nicholson et al. (2012) was aware of this report because Michels and Bauer thank Jay Savage for having provided thoughtful comments on their manuscript. I’m not sure why Nicholson et al. (2012) reject this proposed change by using forbesi.

2. Nicholson et al. (2012) delete the final ‘i’ from a species originally named Anolis williamsii, in spite of the fact that article 33.4 of the ICZN states that “[t]he use of the genitive ending -i in a subsequent spelling of a species-group name that is a genitive based upon a personal name in which the correct original spelling ends with -ii, or vice versa, is deemed to be an incorrect subsequent spelling, even if the change in spelling is deliberate.” Which part of this rule or related rules in The Code permits changes from ‘ii’ to ‘i’ under some conditions?

3. Nicholson et al. (2012) change both the generic and specific epithets of Anolis parvicirculata when they refer to this species throughout their manuscript as Norpos parvicirculatus (see pages 91 and 96). Although I have included this change in my table for completeness, it is the one change that I think we must attribute to a typo, even though the misspelling of Norops as Norpos appears at least twice. The change from parvicirculatus seems likely due to the fact that this species originally, and incorrectly, had a feminine rather than a masculine specific epithet.

4. This post was revised to include original spellings confirmed by Peter Uetz, thus no more NAs in the table. Thanks Peter!