Anole Annals

Grand prize winner for the 2016 contest – Anolis equestris potior by Jesus Reina Carvajal

Thanks to all of you that have sent in photos for our calendar contest! For those who haven’t sent anything yet, now’s your chance – there is ONE WEEK left before the deadline (next Monday, November 6) so if you plan to submit, be sure to do so soon!

To remind you, the rules are here:
Submit your photos (as many as you’d like) as email attachments to anoleannalsphotos@gmail.com. To make sure that your submissions arrive, please send an accompanying email without any attachments to confirm that we’ve received them. Photos must be at least 150 dpi and print to a size of 11 x 17 inches. If you are unsure how to resize your images, the simplest thing to do is to submit the raw image files produced by your digital camera (or if you must, a high quality scan of a printed image).  If you elect to alter your own images, don’t forget that it’s always better to resize than to resample. Images with watermarks or other digital alterations that extend beyond color correction, sharpening and other basic editing will not be accepted. We are not going to deal with formal copyright law and ask only your permission to use your image for the calendar and related content on Anole Annals (more specifically, by submitting your photos, you are agreeing to allow us to use them in the calendar). We, in turn, agree that your images will never be used without attribution and that we will not profit financially from their use (the small amount of royalties we receive are used to purchase calendars for the winners). Please only submit photos you’ve taken yourself, not from other photographers–by submitting photos, you are declaring that you are the photographer and have the authority to allow the photograph to be used in the calendar if it is chosen.

Please provide a short description of the photo that includes: (1) the species name, (2) the location where the photo was taken, and (3) any other relevant information. Be sure to include your full name in your email as well.

Thank you and good luck!

Take a look at this picture uploaded to iNaturalist by user braddockbiotech, a Middle School student from Miami-Dade County who is recording observations of non-native anoles in Florida as part of our LizardsOnTheLoose project (in association with the Fairchild Challenge, you can read more about this project on Anole Annals here and here).

The picture shows an adult male Puerto Rican crested anole (Anolis cristatellus) chomping down on a younger juvenile, which is frantically displaying back at it. Why is the smaller anole displaying? An innate anti-predatory response? Or perhaps a targeted response at the male to highlight they are conspecifics?

This year we are incorporating iNaturalist into our #LizardsOnTheLoose project, which aims to record the distributions and habitat use of non-native anoles throughout South Florida. We hope to get more fascinating natural history insights like this as the submissions roll in! If you’re interested in learning more about our #LizardsOnTheLoose anole project, please take a look at this video:

Anolis vermiculatus, by Raimundo López-Silvero Martínez

Another year, another field season (or seasons) come and gone, and now it’s time to share the great anoles we’ve seen! Get ready for the Anole Annals Photo Contest: 2017 Edition.

As in previous years, the Anole Annals team wants to see your best anole photographs for our 2018 calendar.

Here’s how it works: anyone who wants to participate will submit their favorite photos. The editors of Anole Annals will choose a set of 30-40 finalists from that initial pool. We’ll then put those photos up for a vote on this here blog, and the 12 winning photos will be chose by readers of Anole Annals, as well as a panel of anole photography experts. The grand prize winner and runner-up will have his/her photo featured on the front cover of the 2017 Anole Annals calendar, second place winner will have his/her photo featured on the back cover, and they’ll both win a free calendar!

Before we move on, I’d like to issue a correction from last year’s calendar – due to an unfortunate email miscommunication, we accidentally attributed several photos to the wrong photographer. By the time we realized our mistake, the calendar was already in print. We would like to sincerely apologize to Raimundo López-Silvero Martínez and Rosario Basail​, whose photos, Anolis vermiculatus (September) and Anolis garridoi (April) respectively, we mis-credited. But please, take a look and appreciate them here! We will be sure to be more careful this year.

Anolis garridoi, by Rosario Basail​

Back to business. The rules: submit your photos (as many as you’d like) as email attachments to anoleannalsphotos@gmail.com. To make sure that your submissions arrive, please send an accompanying email without any attachments to confirm that we’ve received them. Photos must be at least 150 dpi and print to a size of 11 x 17 inches. If you are unsure how to resize your images, the simplest thing to do is to submit the raw image files produced by your digital camera (or if you must, a high quality scan of a printed image).  If you elect to alter your own images, don’t forget that it’s always better to resize than to resample. Images with watermarks or other digital alterations that extend beyond color correction, sharpening and other basic editing will not be accepted. We are not going to deal with formal copyright law and ask only your permission to use your image for the calendar and related content on Anole Annals (more specifically, by submitting your photos, you are agreeing to allow us to use them in the calendar). We, in turn, agree that your images will never be used without attribution and that we will not profit financially from their use (the small amount of royalties we receive are used to purchase calendars for the winners). Please only submit photos you’ve taken yourself, not from other photographers–by submitting photos, you are declaring that you are the photographer and have the authority to allow the photograph to be used in the calendar if it is chosen.

Please provide a short description of the photo that includes: (1) the species name, (2) the location where the photo was taken, and (3) any other relevant information. Be sure to include your full name in your email as well. Deadline for submission is November 6, 2017.

Good luck, and we look forward to seeing your photos!

We saw the brown anole jumping into the water in part I, now we see the gory, but delicious, aftermath!

Photo by John Karges

We’ve seen this before. Anoles are, alas, no match for these large and wily marauders. John Karges provides the story: “The egret was flying down the riparian woodland corridor over a side channel, and abruptly landed in the mid-story thicket overhanging the stream and immediately began a stalk. It lunge-grabbed the anole, and very quickly devoured the adult anole in a matter of seconds.”

And here’s where it went down: 2 Oct 2016 San Antonio Mission NHP, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas.

And the inevitable outcome.

Photo by John Karges

The head of the Green Anole is circled in white. The tolerance of the Cornsnake was perhaps aided by what appeared to be full belly.

Snakes love anoles, though their affection is seldom reciprocated. Unsurprising. But, it seems a snake/anole relationship which leaves the anole happy and undigested is not beyond the realm of possibility. In a recent natural history note, published in Herpetological Review, James Stroud and I describe an unlikely friendship I happened upon while working as a field technician in Miami FL. While collecting samples and doing routine maintenance on an automatic water sampler in Everglades National Park, I found a Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) nestled within the coils of a large Cornsnake (Pantherophis guttatus) inside the external battery housing of the sampling unit. At first, my delight was focused on the snake (such encounters were a big perk of the job), but then I noticed a slender head regarding me cautiously from the safety of the coils. After a moment, the lizard slowly pulled its head fully underneath its protector, and I closed the lid on the snake/lizard duo, content the battery was in working condition. It was a cool day, and I was happy that I did not need to disturb the animals.

Given the tendency of snakes to make meals out of anoles, this encounter struck me as odd. After casually mentioning it to James Stroud, he immediately suggested this as a possible incident of kleptothermy, which describes a thermoregulatory process by which an organism regulates its body temperature by stealing the warmth of other organisms. The snake was certainly much larger, and so even though it was a fellow ectotherm, snuggling up to it would have likely provided some increase in thermal inertia. Thermal benefits aside, did the oblivious(?) guardian also provide protection against smaller Cornsnakes, perhaps more used to preying on anoles of that size? Did the lizard even realize what it had decided to make its bed upon when it crawled into the dark confines of the battery housing? We may never know.