Anole Annals

Anolis leachii enjoying life on balmy, tropical Antigua

One of the tell-tale signs that you’re in the tropics in the Western Hemisphere is the abundance of anoles scampering about on palm trees. Tropical anoles tend to get all the media attention. The lowland tropical taxa are the anole media darlings, such as the jewel-toned Lesser Antillean anoles, the flashy trunk-crown anoles, such as A. allisoni, and the determined invaders, like A. sagrei. Personally, I’m a bigger fan of the montane anoles. These species tend to get less attention. They’re usually fairly drab in coloration and, by definition, they live in more inhospitable environments that are remote and difficult to access. These are the anoles that live where the 4×4 can’t penetrate, where the cold rain pounds even in the dead of summer, and where the lush tropical communities of the lowlands morph into endless stands of lonely pine trees.

And, even if they usually lack the pigmented pizazz of the lowland anoles, the montane species have a mystery that is all their own. How is it that lizards bearing a tropical ancestry can tolerate the harsh environments found at high elevation? Do they use behavior to mitigate the cold? Do they evolve their physiology? To date we still have more questions than answers, but as a community we’re slowly beginning to build our knowledge of what makes highland anoles tick.

A study by Gunther Köhler and colleagues in a recent issue of Herpetology Notes focuses on a truly enigmatic species, Anolis omiltemanus. To say this montane species from the Guerrero region of Mexico is poorly understood is an understatement. What little we know of A. omiltemanus comes from a handful of studies conducted a few decades ago. Beyond the fact that these lizards have been found in leaf litter and in small shrubs in the pine and oak forests near Omiltemi, very little is known about their ecology.

A male A. omiltemanus (top) and a female (bottom). Images are from Köhler et al. (2013)

The Evolution Of Squamate Developmental Sequences

By Thomas Sanger

On September 24, 2013

In New Research

A. sagrei developmental sequence. Cover illustration from Sanger et al. (2012) Proc. B.

As discussed previously in the Annals, interest in squamate development is rapidly accelerating. Our growing community makes this an exciting time to study lizard development, especially in a comparative context. A recent study by Andrews et al. capitalizes on the increasing number of developmental resources for squamates to assess variability in developmental sequences across lizards and snakes. One of our favorite anoles, Anolis sagrei, represents one of the 21 species included in this study. The conclusions of this study speak to several long-standing evolutionary questions and opens up new avenues of investigation that may be of interest the readers of this blog.  

Anole-Munchin’ Bats

By Jonathan Losos

On September 24, 2013

In New Research

A while back, we discussed whether bats eat anoles. It was recently brought to AA’s attention that anolivory by the common big-eared bat has been graphically documented in a 2011 PLoS One paper by Santana et al. Using videos taken at feeding roosts on Barro Colorado Island, the researchers documented three incidents of anoles being consumed, one of which is exhibited above (the anole looks like A. limifrons, a common species on BCI. Agree?).

As reported recently, these bats have become adept at scanning leaves for stationary prey, a major advance in bat foraging. One of the paper’s authors, Inga Geipel, confirmed that the lizards were caught during the night. As a result, apparently no sleeping anole is safe! The authors describe this foraging thusly: “M. microtis hunts on the wing, checking leaf by leaf in the forest while hovering up and down the understory vegetation.”

As for how they eat the anole, here’s the author’s description. Gruesome warning!!! Not for faint of heart:

Bats generally ate arthropods by repeatedly biting and crushing the prey’s head, or cephalothorax in the case of spiders, and then biting and discarding the wings, antennae and/or legs. Bats mostly used their premolar and molar teeth for the latter task, biting with one or both sides of the jaw. Once the prey’s head had been consumed and appendages had been discarded, bats consumed the thorax and abdomen biting with their molars and premolars and rotating the prey from one side of the jaw to the other.…Bats ate lizards in a similar fashion as they did arthropods, except that legs were also eaten along with the whole body. Bats started eating the lizard at the head (figure above), where they applied multiple molar bites. They continued to consume the lizard by chewing it with the molars using one side of the jaw, a behavior that continued throughout the consumption of the whole of the lizard. Apparently, lizards were eaten completely; the tail was not dropped.

How Many Introduced Brown Anoles Can You Find?

By Jonathan Losos

On September 23, 2013

In Introduced Anoles

To acknowledge, if not celebrate, the news that Anolis sagrei has become established on the Honduran Bay Island of Utila–which harbors three native species–we present this photograph of the first place that the species was discovered, a vacant lot in the middle of town. As you can see if inspect the photo, the introduction has been quite successful. But just how successful? How many brown anoles can you spot?

Request For Brown Anole (A. Sagrei) Photographs

By Veronica Gomez-Pourroy

On September 22, 2013

In Anole Photographs

Brown anoles. Photo courtesy Bob Reed

Hello fellow scientists and photography aficionados!

My name is Veronica Gomez-Pourroy and this is week has been laden with firsts for me: first time living in the US, first week at the Losos Lab, and now… the first post in this brilliant blog!! I am a zoologist on my third semester of my Evolutionary Biology masters, and I’ve begun working on my first (of two) Master’s thesis. I will be investigating phenotypic variation in the widespread and very cool Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei), working with Jonathan Losos and Marta López Darias.

One of the elements we’d like to look into is variation in skin patterning and dewlap colouration – but at the moment I’m using specimens from museum collections and as we know, colour gets corrupted soon after an animal is “pickled.” For this reason, I am asking for your help to compile a comprehensive collection of pictures of A. sagrei–both males and females–that span most of their range. If you’d like to share your pictures with us, please email them to:

veronica.gomez-pourroy@evobio.eu

and include the location and, if possible, date when the photo was shot. I will be forever grateful for any help, and will acknowledge you in my thesis, of course!!
A huge thank you in advance, I’ll keep you posted on the progress made.

Nephila Predation on Brown Anole

By Gabriel Gartner

On September 21, 2013

In Introduced Anoles, Natural History Observations

A brown anole is caught up in the web of an Argiope orb-weaving spider

A brown anole is caught up in the web of an Nephila orb-weaving spider

Anoles eating spiders and spiders turning the table on anoles are well reported in both the literature and here on Anole Annals (1, 2). Recently, biologists Sarah French and Matthew Wolak of UC Riverside encountered this unfortunate Anolis sagrei that had been caught up in the web of an Nephila orb-weaving spider. Here’s what they had to say about the enounter: “We were at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton. Matt & I were walking down the boardwalk, totally creeped out by the abundance of spiders, when we encountered the anole caught in a web. He was still alive, but pretty well caught. The spider didn’t seem entirely sure what to do with it, but she seemed to occasionally bite it, which caused the anole to jerk & thrash about for a few seconds. It was hard not to feel sympathy for the anole, but native species trump exotic, and so we refrained from interfering! (But we also didn’t stick around for too long to watch).”

Wanted: ID Of Anoles From The Dominican Republic

By Peter Uetz

On September 20, 2013

In Anole Photographs

Can anyone help with an ID of these anoles from the Dominican Republic?

Spoiler warning: May be A. cybotes, but maybe not…

Thanks!

Lizard Preference For The Color Orange: The Famous Chuckles Experiment

By Jonathan Losos

On September 19, 2013

In Natural History Observations

Anolis agassizi. Photo by Margarita Ramos.

Pat Shipman’s recent observations on a brown anole displaying at a fluttering orange flag, and her question about whether anyone has seen an anole paying particular attention to the color orange brings to mind the famous Chuckles experiment.

In the early 1970’s, a Smithsonian-led expedition visited remote Malpelo Island in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Colombia. To make a long story short, the researchers noted that the endemic A. agassizi, a very interesting species in its own right, seemed to have a thing for orange objects. To test this hypothesis, they turned to Chuckles, the hard jelly candy that comes in five colors, one of which is orange (and which, fortuitously, they had a package available on the ship on which they were based, there being no land accommodations on Malpelo).

Bottom line: the anoles do, indeed, prefer orange and yellow. Read all about it in this snippet, extracted from the article:

Rand, A.S., G.C. Gorman, and W.M. Rand. 1975. Natural history, behavior, and ecology of
Anolis agassizi. Smithsonian Contributions in Zoology 174:27–38.

I describe the experiment and an abortive attempt to follow up on it in Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree (footnote 189, p.146):

No discussion of anole frugivory and feeding behavior is complete without mention of the famous Chuckles® experiment. On an expedition to remote Malpelo Island off the coast of Colombia, Rand et al. (1975) noted that the native anole of the island, A. agassizi, was attracted to the orange cap of a bottle of suntan lotion and to the orange packaging for Kodak film, and would come running from great distances and in great numbers when half of an orange was placed on the ground. The intrepid biologists wondered whether these anoles had a particular predisposition to the color orange. Fortunately, the expedition was outfitted with packages of Chuckles®—billed as “America’s most popular jelly candy” in a 1949 advertisement—which conveniently contain candies in five colors: orange, yellow, red, green, and black. By placing various combinations of these sweets on the ground, the authors found that anoles are most attracted to orange and yellow candies, and least attracted to black ones.

But the story does not end there. In an effort to extend this research program to additional species, a graduate student in my laboratory tested a captive A. grahami with differently colored Starbursts®, a non-jellied candy that also comes in different colors (Chuckles® may not have been available in the local vending machine). Unfortunately, this experiment was stymied by other members of the lab, who removed lizard-bite sized pieces from the candies, thus briefly convincing the experimentalist that he was on to a major discovery.

How To Pronounce “Anole”

By Jonathan Losos

On September 17, 2013

In All Posts

Ever wondered what the most viewed post on Anole Annals is? I bet it keeps many of you up late at night trying to guess. So, I’ll tell you. Over the last year, the single most viewed page is the one entitled “The Proper Pronunciation of ‘Anole’.” In that post, an AA reader asked how to pronounce our favorite noun, and many readers responded.

But that was more than two years ago, and languages evolve swiftly. Moreover, many have joined AA’s readership since then. So, I’ll throw out the question again. For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts, as expressed Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree (p.10):

“…honorable, right-thinking people can disagree over whether the correct pronunciation is uh-nole or an-ole. I am less charitably inclined to my ninth grade biology teacher’s uh-no-lee, but, although I have never heard “anole” articulated in that way by anyone else, I am told that it is common in the South, from whence she came (I was surprised to find that this is the preferred pronunciation of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, according to www.dictionary.com).

As for the origin of the name, Daudin [1802], who named the genus, said that “anolis” was the name the indigenous Caribs used for these lizards. However, there is some possibility that in fact “anolis” may have been their name for lizards in the genus Ameiva and that the correct Carib word was “oulléouma” (see discussion in Breuil, 2002). Right or wrong, Daudin clearly chose the more mellifluous name to bestow upon these lizards! A more interesting, though doubtless less accurate, explanation is the Saba Tourist Bureau’s statement (www.sabatourism.com) that “The scientific name of ‘Anolis’ comes from the popular name of “anole” for these lizards. Anole is an ancient African name, meaning “little devil”, that is given to small lizards in western Africa.”

Lowland Anolis Gundlachi

By Jonathan Losos

On September 16, 2013

In Anole Photographs

Anolis gundlachi. Photo by Alejandro Sanchez.

Father Sanchez has done it again! Here’s his commentary accompanying this lovely photo: “… today I was at the Guajataca State Forest. The lowland forms of Anolis gundlachi (one of my favorite anolines) are quite smaller – and frequently paler – than those of the highlands. Incipient speciation? One can only hope.”

As for the occurrence of the cool-loving A. gundlachi in lowlands, see the discussion of this stemming from the recent symposium on the effect of global warming on ectotherms.