Anole Annals

Egg-Laying Biology Of The Green Anole

On October 18, 2013

The egg-laying biology of anoles is surprisingly little studied. Where do they lay their eggs? How often? Inquiring minds needs to know. And now a team of Japanese scientists led by Mitsuhido Toda has taken a small step to answer these questions.

Working with green anoles introduced to islands near Japan, the researchers brought ten females into the lab, amply fed and watered them, and saw where and how often they laid eggs. The lizards were brought into the lab in April and the first egg was laid in late May. Egg production increased until a peak in mid-August and ended in late October. Over the course of the season, females laid an average of 13.7 eggs. At the peak in August, females were averaging almost an egg a week.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the study was the cage in which the females were kept, which had a variety of available sites, including a potted fern and pots with wet and dry soil all at ground level, and another set of pots at a meter. Females strongly preferred the low-down pots to the high ones, and the pots with the ferns to those without. Among eggs laid in fern-less pots, all were in the wet soil and none in the dry soil. In the pots with ferns, eggs were often laid in the cup-shaped part of the plant in the center of the pot or between the eggs; eggs laid in the soil were from 0-50 mm below the surface, averaging 17 mm deep.

This research is part of a greater effort to learn the natural history of the green anole so as to eradicate it from the Japanese islands, where it is apparently having a devastating effect on the endemic insect fauna [1,2]. The researchers suggest that eradication efforts may be most useful in April, before the egg-laying season begins, and also suggest the development of artificial egg-laying sites, from which eggs can be harvested before they hatch.

R.I.P. Chad Watkins

By Jonathan Losos

On October 16, 2013

In All Posts

Anole Annals is very sorry to learn of the passing of AA contributor Chad Watkins. Chad, a graduate student at the University of Texas-Arlington , was killed in a car crash October 8th in Dallas. Chad’s research was on the occurrence of transposable elements in Hox genes in Anolis carolinensis. We reported on his fascinating talk on this topic at the 2011 Evolution meetings, and Chad himself posted on some eggs that survived freezing in an incubator mishap. Rest in peace, Chad Watkins.

Name That Anole

By Jonathan Losos

On October 15, 2013

In Anole Photographs

Here’s one almost no one out there has ever seen. What is it?

Predation On Anolis Sagrei By A Juvenile Southern Black Racer

By Ambika Kamath

On October 13, 2013

In Introduced Anoles, Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field

I’m a big fan of predation events, and after two and a half months of working with Sitana in a site bizarrely devoid of predators, I had high hopes for Miami. I was not disappointed, and on my second day, had the chance to watch this snake capture and eat a female Anolis sagrei. This happened in the grounds of the Florida International University, Biscayne Bay Campus, where I was collecting some preliminary data on A. sagrei territory overlap. The photo is from relatively early in the lizard consumption process, before the snake (a Southern Black Racer, Coluber constrictor priapus) turned the lizard around and swallowed it head first.

I initially thought the anole was A. distichus, which are abundant in the area where I saw the snake. On seeing that it was in fact A. sagrei, I realised that I might have unwittingly played a role in the lizard’s demise. I had in fact been trying to catch a female A. sagrei in the vicinity myself, and must have chased her right into the grasp of this snake! I like to think of the situation as my having facilitated the snake’s successful capture, and not as being out-lizarded by a baby snake, but I know I’m just deluding myself…

Thanks to Gabe Gartner and James Stroud for identifying the snake.

Hueyfest A Great Success

By Jonathan Losos

On October 12, 2013

In All Posts

Outside of the program distributed at Hueyfest. Designed by Barry Sinervo.

Outside pages of the program distributed at Hueyfest. Designed by Barry Sinervo.

A week ago Friday, 60 people gathered at the Burke Museum in Seattle to celebrate the career of Ray Huey. And what a career it’s been: thermal ecophysiology, comparative methods development, rapid evolution in Drosophila, effects of global warming on ectotherms, and much, much more.

And we heard all about it, and then some, in the eight talks that filled the day’s proceedings. The presentations were many and varied, but all had one theme: the important role Ray has played not only in the development of important ideas in science, but in the lives of the people with whom he has interacted. Here’s a few highlights:

Paul Hertz, who has worked with Ray since they were graduate students, reflected on Ray then and now

Paul Hertz, who has worked with Ray since they were graduate students, reflected on Ray’s early days up to the present

Some of the photos of Ray in earlier days presented by Hertz

Next up was Joel Kingsolver, who provided an insightful analysis of Ray’s publishing approach.

The “Rediscovery” Of Anolis Proboscis, And The Evolution Of A Viral Internet News Story

By Luke Mahler

On October 11, 2013

In Anoles and Anolologists in the News

If you work on Anolis lizards, there’s a good chance you’ve been asked about the recent rediscovery of the long-thought-to-be-extinct “Pinocchio Anole” within the last week. As Anole Annals reported on October 7, this story has hit the big time. After being featured on the Huffington Post, the tale of this rediscovery went viral, receiving extensive news coverage worldwide.

The catch, as most Anole Annals readers are doubtless aware, is that the Pinocchio Anole wasn’t just recently rediscovered. It was rediscovered in 2005, and has since been the subject of field studies resulting in no fewer than five published works (six if you count “Finding Anolis proboscis,” Steve Poe’s 2010 Anolis Newsletter article about finding Anolis proboscis).

What gives? How can the central claim of such a major scientific news item be fundamentally incorrect?

I propose the following hypothesis: This story evolved to its current state by good old-fashioned natural selection. I think that an initially accurate web story was repeatedly and imperfectly replicated, and that as the story was picked up by increasingly larger news outlets, important details were lost or altered during transcription (perhaps selectively, since discovery makes good copy), resulting in the evolution of an incorrect news item.

If I have things right (it’s possible I don’t know all the details), the story started with an informational advertisement from the ecotourism company Destination Ecuador.

If you read that article, it’s pretty accurate with the potential exception of a single use of the word “re-discovery” to describe the event during which the Tropical Herping team found Anolis proboscis. The use of that word is admittedly a little strange and perhaps a bit unwise, but the article makes it very clear that the actual rediscovery of the species took place in 2005, and describes a successful scientific expedition to study the species in the wild in 2010. To me the point of this article is “with our ecotourism company, you can have a chance to travel with experts to see a weird, rare, recently-rediscovered lizard species.”

Next comes an article by Douglas Main on livescience.com, which appears to be the original source of the viral news item. If you read the LiveScience article, it’s worded in a way that tells a narrative of very recent rediscovery (which is not really true) without ever explicitly stating it.

Brown Anole At Bermuda International Airport?

By Jonathan Losos

On October 9, 2013

In Introduced Anoles

Mark Outerbridge recently posted this photo in a comment, writing: “This photo of an anole hatchling was taken (via cell phone, hence the poor quality) by a member of the public in the departure lounge at the Bermuda international airport. Could it be a brown anole?”

We’ve already reported on brownies in Bermuda, but who would have thought they were going in on commercial flights? Or maybe they’re heading home? Is this a brown anole? Could it be Anolis grahami or some other species?

Adapting Anolis: The New Film On Cuban Anoles

By Jonathan Losos

On October 8, 2013

In Anole Videos

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUv0BbQ91wo

In the last year or two, we’ve seen a number of documentaries on Cuban anoles, and here’s another, a 12-minute piece featuring A. equestris, A. vermiculatus, A. ahli (I think), A. sagrei, A. angusticeps, and others. Worth watching, just for the closing line, “There are over 300 anole species in the Caribbean, making the Anolis lizard one of the planet’s most diverse and evolutionarily significant animals.”

Anoles On Huffpo!

By Jonathan Losos

On October 7, 2013

In All Posts

The Huffington Post featured an article yesterday on our old friend [1,2,3], Anolis proboscis. In these pages, this species has been called the horned anole of Ecuador, but Huffpo, following a post two days earlier on Livescience, calls it the Pinocchio anole. You make the call.

The article is about a group of our friends at Tropical Herping finding some specimens of this little seen species. Huffpo’s title, “Pinocchio lizard rediscovered in Ecuador after being thought extinct for 50 years,” takes a few licenses, primarily because, as the article notes, the species has been seen a number of times since 2005, which was only 40 years or so after the previous sighting. Still, it’s nice to see anoles getting the attention.

And, more importantly, the article plugs the wonderful new book on the reptiles and amphibians of Mindo, written and lavishly illustrated by the Tropical Herping team. The book is available now in online format and will be for sale in hardcopy before long. Definitely worth checking out.

And late-breaking news: there’s a video as well!

Territorial Dispute

By Brian Hillen

On October 6, 2013

In Anole Photographs, Introduced Anoles, Natural History Observations

I observed this (full size image) interaction in my backyard one afternoon while I was hunting for good pictures. All anoles tend to flee as I walk around my backyard, but some only retreat partially or temporarily. These two stayed relatively out in the open until I moved a little closer, causing one to flee in to the vicinity of the other one causing the event seen in the picture.