Having four legs is overrated
A year ago, I reported on the surprisingly high incidence of limb loss in brown anoles from Staniel Cay, Bahamas. By the end of that trip, we found five lizards missing a part of their limb, usually the forelimb (see pictures in the previous post) out of 500 we examined (1%). We attributed this limb devastation to predators, but didn’t know what the cause was.
This year in Abaco, we’ve examined close to 400 lizards now, and have only found one case of leg loss. However, it’s an interesting one: most of a hindleg is gone. Yet, the lizard lives–the wound is healed over, so this lizard seems to be doing just fine.
Nearly one week has passed since I entered the Bahamas in search of Anolis brunneus, the Crooked Island anole. Since then I have also been joined by Michele Johnson and two students to help study the behavior and ecology of this poorly known species. I am happy to report that the lizards are treating us well and copious amounts of data are being collected each day. There are several developments that I thought might be of interest to the readers of this blog.
First, the anoles are everywhere! We have surveyed the entirety of the island and have found lizards in almost every habitat: in the sea grapes, in the forest, along the beach, along the arid southern coast, and even in the Bahamian Pines. The only habitat seemingly void of these fine lizards are the mangroves and coastal sea grasses. Green and brown anoles on this island seem to readily share the habitat as we regularly see them in close proximity but rarely fighting for perch space. Compared to A. sagrei, A. brunneus is mild mannered and extremely easy to capture making it a real pleasure to work with.
Elise Knowlton, a graduate student in Manuel Leal’s Lab at Duke University, reports on the initiation of her field research on mating behavior in green anoles in North Carolina
Photo from http://static.flickr.com/75/183141170_b188735c85.jpg
Vega-Castillo and Puente-Rolón in the December, 2011 issue of Herpetological Review report fruit consumption by A. gundlachi, A. stratulus and, most notably, the grass-bush A. krugi. This adds to recent reports of frugivory in three other Puerto Rican species, A. cuvieri, A. evermanni and A. monensis.
As I discussed in Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, frugivory is quite common in anoles, but there are interesting ecological and biogeographical aspects:
“Many anole species are known to eat fruits at least occasionally, and in some species at some localities, frugivory is quite common (Herrel et al., 2004). Species known to be frugivorous are larger than those not known to eat fruits, and West Indian species are frugivorous more than mainland species (30% versus 0% in Herrel et al.’s [2004] survey). Among West Indian anoles, no grass-bush anoles and all crown-giants have been reported to be frugivorous; data for other ecomorphs is mixed. My hunch is that when more species are studied, almost all but the smallest species will be found to occasionally take fruit. For example, the fact that an A. evermanni, not definitively known to eat fruit, once jumped on my shoulder, ran down my arm, perched on my thumb, and bit at the red knob of the stop watch I was holding suggests to me that this trunk-crown anole will eat red berries, just like many other anoles. Seeds (Reagan, 1996) and “seeds or fruit” (Lister, 1981) have been reported in the diet of this species, so my prediction that it is frugivorous is not very daring.
Seed eating is also reported for a number of species (e.g., Wolcott, 1923; Reagan, 1996). In some cases, these seeds may have been ingested incidentally, but in other instances, seeds, which are digested more slowly than pulp, may be the last remaining trace of a fruity meal in the digestive tract of an anole.
Nectarivory has been reported in a number of West Indian trunk-crown anoles (Liner, 1996; Perry and Lazell, 1997; Campbell and Bleazy, 2000; Echternacht and Gerber, 2000; Okochi et al., 2006; Valido, 2006), a grass-bush anole (Perry and Lazell, 2006), and two Lesser Antillean species (Timmermann et al., 2008). The greater occurrence of frugivory and nectarivory among island species compared to those on the mainland agrees with a trend seen for lizards in general (Olesen and Valido, 2003).
This paper anole is part of the exhibit “Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami” at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, which I visited on Tuesday (May 15). You can see an image of the full piece here and a related piece by the same artist here. It turns out that the artist, Bernie Peyton, was a graduate student with Jonathan Losos and me at UC Berkeley in the 1980s.
Editor’s Note: more on Bernie Peyton and origami anoles can be found here and here.
Andrew Stone writes:
I thought some of the contributors to Anole annals might enjoy seeing this–or at least pointing out the mistakes. It can be seen here.
I recently finished a small, multicolor woodblock print of Anolis carolinensis. It took a trip back to Florida to see the actual model but during the preparatory phase I found some useful pictures on your anole website. The print was my contribution to a “Year of the Dragon” exchange among a group of international printmakers.
I took some artistic license–a different block was carved for each color and I tried to keep the number of blocks to a minimum.
You’re welcome to include a link to the website/blog post if you think your regular contributers would enjoy seeing it.
I don’t think I’ll be doing any other anoles any time soon so didn’t wan’t to post as a contributer. If it is too off-topic don’t worry about including it. I just thought anole folks might get a lift out of seeing a layperson’s take of a small, Florida lizard.
We’ve talked about anoles stowing away in potted plants and in wood shipments, and hitch-hiking on planes, but here’s a new one. AA reader Justin Sponholz writes: “My father used to work at Federal Bakers, a food shipment company up here in Buffalo, NY. In a sealed bucket of sugar there was an adult female A. sagrei. My dad brought it to me and she lived for 4+ years. It was in the mid-90s. I know she wouldn’t have survived in the wild but yea she still made it here.
BTW… pretty sure the sugar came from Florida, but I dont know for sure.”
In the link below, select the Download or Print button to download a 12 page illustrated children’s book (pre-K to early Elem.) titled: Anoles by Day and Geckos at Night in PDF format. The book is iPad compatible if loaded into your iBooks library under the PDF option. I welcome your professional feedback on content and urge you to share the story with young friends and family members.
Anoles by Day and Geckos at Night is a work in progress as I am attempting to animate the critters, add interactive elements and publish an eBook.
Anolis capito, ranivore. From http://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/bioinformatics/dfm/metas/view/45332
Our knowledge of natural history knowledge was expanded ever so slightly by the recent report by Mora et al. in the most recent Herpetological Review of an observation of a male eating a pygmy rain frog (Pristimantis ridens).
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