Bill Rainey observed this lizard on a restored portion of one temple at Altun Ha, an ancient Mayan city in modern-day Belize, in an area shaded by trees. Anyone know what it is?
The following is taken from the Society for the Study of Amphibian and Reptile’s website:
Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles
The Catalogue consists of accounts of taxa prepared by specialists, including synonymy, description, diagnosis, phylogenetic relationships, published descriptions, illustrations, distribution map, and comprehensive list of literature for each taxon. Over 900 accounts have been published since the initiation of the series in 1963. The series covers amphibians and reptiles of the entire Western Hemisphere. Previously, accounts were published as loose-leaf separates; beginning in 2013 accounts are published as on-line PDFs. All accounts are open access and are available for free download at the University of Texas Library Repository.
Just this week, one of the latest catalogue entries is for the little known Anolis ruibali of Cuba, written by Robert Powell, Javier Torres, and Nils Navarro Pacheco.
Poor Anolis, snack box of the jungle. Seems that just about anything will eat an anole. So, it’s not surprise to learn that the teid lizard Kentropyx calcarata joins the lizard of anole consumers. So report Franzini et al. in a recent report in Herpetology Notes. Anolis fuscoauratus was the unfortunate victim, the crime discovered by examination of stomach contents.
Consider two lizard species that differ in limb length, with one species having relatively longer legs than others. During development, how does this difference arise? Do the limbs start at the same length when they first appear in the embryo, but grow at a greater rate in the longer-legged species? Or is the initial limb bud longer in the embryo of the longer-legged species, and then the rate of growth the same in the two species, preserving the initial difference?
Thom Sanger’s elegant work showed that the latter answer is correct for Anolis: the limb buds of long-legged species start out longer and then grow in parallel with those of shorter-legged species.
But does this finding also hold when comparing across a broader range of lizards? Robin Andrews and Sable Skewes decided to find out, comparing embryos of a chameleon, two geckos, and the brown anole.
The answer: the same pattern as within anoles! And it applies to tail length (but not head length) as well as limbs.
Uracentron flaviceps (upper photo) and Microlophus thoracicus (lower photo), two tropidurine lizards adapted to rainforests and deserts, respectively.
I was lucky enough to spend some months working at the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard as part of the Losos lab. There I learned a good deal about anoles and got to meet anole-loving people face to face. Even though this atmosphere tempted me to develop a project related to one of the greatest examples of adaptive radiation, I had other plans in mind involving some of their distant cousins: tropidurine lizards! The results of this study are already published (Toyama, 2017) and I will describe a bit of what I found.
Tropidurinae is a group of lizards whose representatives have diversified across South America. They come in different shapes, colors and sizes, as you would expect from any group of organisms spreading in a diverse territory in terms of habitats, climates and altitudes. Rainforests, deserts, mountains and dry forests are just some examples of the different ecosystems where you can find these lizards. Given this scenario, I wondered if the morphological diversity observed in this clade could be linked to the challenges imposed by the different habitats types found in the continent.
Inspired by similar studies that focused on other lizard radiations, I took measurements of functional morphological traits of several species of lizards coming from 10 out of the 12 genera comprising the Tropidurinae. These traits would allow me to look for a possible correspondence between morphology and habitat.
However, as I was not only interested in the link between morphology and habitat use, but also in the morphological diversity itself, I started looking at purely morphological information. The next figure shows the illustrative results of a Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which tries to separate the species as much as possible based on the morphological measurements. In the figure, we can observe how the dots of each color (representing species of the same genus) occupy a particular zone in the graph. This means that, in general, species of the same genus are, as expected, morphologically more similar between them than to species of other genera (exceptions aside, given the overlaps between some genera).
Scatter plot showing the morphological space defined by PC1 and PC2. Each dot represents the average values for a species, and species are grouped in genera (colors). Abbreviations are shown for some traits as HL (head length), HW (head width), HH (head height), BW (body width), BH (body height), Dist (distance between limbs), Htoe (longest toe of the hind limb), and Ftoe (longest toe of the forelimb).
Going a bit farther in respect to morphological diversity,
My good friend Trace Hardin, a professional entomologist but also avid herper and snake breeder, just sent me these photos below. Here’s what he had to say about the encounter on Instagram:
hardinherpetologica: Interesting observation while walking through the woods. Found this #BoxTurtle eating a dead #GreenAnole. I’m assuming it was a scavenged find but the entire body was gone by the time I came upon the scene. #Neature
Has anyone else observed box turtles (or any other chelonian [I guess now testudine?]) interacting with anoles?
Anolis oxylophus at La Selva Biological Station (left, photo by Christian Perez) and Anolis aquaticus at Las Cruces Biological Station (right, posed).
Among anoles, West Indian ecomorphs are the best known microhabitat specialists, but they are not the only ones. Semiaquatic anoles, of which there are 11 described species, live exclusively near streams and will sometimes enter water to feed or to escape a threat. The Central American species Anolis aquaticus appears to be specialized for climbing on rocks, particularly relative to other Central American semiaquatic anoles (Muñoz et al. 2015). Recent posts on A. aquaticus have addressed sleep site fidelity, dewlaps and trait scaling, and underwater foraging.
During a field ecology course with the Organization for Tropical Studies last winter, I compared patterns of substrate use between A. aquaticus and another Central American semiaquatic anole, Anolis oxylophus. Unlike A. aquaticus, A. oxylophus perches predominantly on woody and leafy substrates (Table 1). I wondered what was driving the differences in substrate use between these two species that appear broadly similar in morphology and lifestyle. Some Caribbean anoles alter their behavior to use only a narrow subset of available substrates in their habitat, whereas others have a greater breadth of substrate use that more closely reflects habitat-wide availability (Irschick and Losos, 1999; Mattingly and Jayne, 2004; Johnson et al., 2006). To evaluate whether substrate use differences between A. aquaticus and A. oxylophus are driven by substrate availability, species-specific selectivity, or both, I simultaneously quantified lizard substrate use and substrate availability within their streamside habitats.
Thanks to the work of Roger Thorpe and colleagues, Lesser Antillean anoles are renowned as an example of adaptive geographic variation. On many islands in the Lesser Antilles, populations in wet areas, where vegetation is lush, are green in color, whereas those in more xeric areas tend to be a drab gray, often with markings on their back. This pattern is repeated on many different islands, the convergent geographic variation thus making a strong case for the adaptive basis of anole coloration.
See Pavitra Muralidhar’s previous post for more information on geographic variation in Lesser Antillean anoles.
In a new paper in PLoS One, Thorpe takes this work a step further, asking whether we can use the parallel patterns seen across Lesser Antillean islands to predict the coloration of an anole species on another island. The focal species is Anolis bonairensis, which occupies the extraordinarily dry island of Bonaire (see our previous posts on this species).
The prediction: A. bonairensis should be grayer and drabber than populations of anoles that occur at the driest sites on Lesser Antillean answers.
The answer: yes! Just as predicted, Anolis bonairensis is one drab lizard. Score one for evolutionary predictability!
Anolis bonairensis is represented by the red circles. The x-axis goes from aridity on the left to the most mesic on the right. As you can see, A. bonairensis‘s color and patterning is well-predicted by variation in other species.
Anolis biporcatus, one of the prettiest of anoles. Photo by Thomas Marent
Anolis biporcatus is, if I’m not mistaken, the largest mainland beta/Norops anoles, attaining a length of ca. 100 mm snout-vent. In addition, it has an enormous geographic distribution, ranging from southern Mexico to Ecuador. In a new paper in Salamandra, a team of New Mexican and Ecuadorian biologists headed by Janet Armstead have sliced off part of the species, raising the Ecuadorian/Colombian A. biporcatus parvauritus to species status. They make this decision based on a detailed analysis of morphology and molecular data. Their data also find deep genetic subdivisions within A. biporcatus in Costa Rica, suggesting that there may be more cryptic species awaiting recognition.
A key difference between the species is the color of the distal scales on the dewlap of males, white in biporcatus, black in parvauritus.
Note, too, that like many mainland anoles, the males and females have very different dewlaps.
Here’s the distribution of the two species:
Photograph was taken in Hahashima, Ogasawara Islands, by Hideaki Mori.
We would like to introduce our recent paper on the invasive green anole (Suzuki-Ohno et al. 2017). In Japan, the green anole Anolis carolinensis invaded the Ogasawara Islands in 1960’s and Okinawa Island in 1980’s. In Ogasawara Islands, A. carolinensis expanded its range and had a significant negative impact on native species and the ecosystem. This becomes a big problem since Ogasawara Islands are designated as a natural heritage.
On Okinawa Island, A. carolinensis was first captured in 1989 and it did not expand its distribution until more than 25 years later, although its density is extremely high in the southern region. In the northern region of Okinawa Island, Yambaru area, native forests are preserved so that it is important to avoid the invasive effects of A. carolinensis. Thus, It is important to determine whether A. carolinensis has the potential to expand its distribution on Okinawa Island.
Phylogenetic analysis shows that the invader A. carolinensis originated in the western part of the Gulf Coast and inland areas of the United States. Interestingly, all of the invaded A. carolinensis in Ogasawara, Okinawa and Hawaii originated from the Gulf Coast and inland areas of the United States.
ND2 phylogeny using Okinawan, Ogasawaran, and Hawaiian populations in addition to haplotypes used by Campbell- Staton et al. (2012) and Hayashi et al. (2009).The major branches with high posterior probabilities of the Bayesian inference method (>0.99) are indicated in bold. The map was redrawn from Campbell-Staton et al. (2012). Cited from Suzuki-Ohno et al. (2017). Figure 2 of Suzuki-Ohno et al. (2017) lacks bold lines in error.
We used a species distribution model (MaxEnt) based on the distribution of native populations in North America to identify ecologically suitable areas on Okinawa Island. The MaxEnt predictions indicate that most areas in Okinawa Island are suitable for A. carolinensis. Therefore, A. carolinensis may have the potential to expand its distribution in Okinawa Island.
MaxEnt prediction of suitable areas for A. carolinensis in Okinawa Island according to the presence data for North America. Lighter and darker areas indicate high or low suitability, respectively. Points indicate the presence distribution of A. carolinensis. (a) prediction using all parameters, (b) prediction omitting mean diurnal range and precipitation of warmest quarter. Cited from Suzuki-Ohno et al. 2017.
The predictions indicate that habitat suitability is high in areas of high annual mean temperature and urbanized areas. The values of precipitation in summer in the northern region of Okinawa Island were higher compared with those of North America, which reduced the habitat suitability in Okinawa Island. Adaptation to low temperatures, an increase in the mean temperature through global warming, and an increase in open environments through land development will likely expand the distribution of A. carolinensis in Okinawa Island. We think that invasive anoles (A. calrolinensis and A. sageri) prefer open habitats.
Therefore, we suggest that A. carolinensis should be removed by using traps and/or chemicals. In addition, we must continue to be alert to the possibility that city planning that increases open environments may cause their range to expand.
These results were published as Suzuki-Ohno et al. (2017) Factors restricting the range expansion of the invasive green anole Anolis carolinensis on Okinawa Island, Japan. Ecology and Evolution