Anole Annals

Eminent anole researcher Robin Andrews was recognized by the Herpetologists’ League with the 2021 Distinguished Herpetologist Award for her contributions to advancing scientific and public understanding of herpetology through research, teaching, and service. Her essay in Herpetologica chronicles the incredible, 50-year-long research program she, Stan Rand and others have conducted on Anolis apletothallus on Barro Colorado Island in Panama.

Here’s the Abstract:

I present the results of 50 yr (1971–2020) of annual censuses of Anolis apletophallus on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. The main objectives were to assess why abundance in end-of-the-year censuses varied substantially from year to year and why it declined over time. Abundance was negatively correlated with annual rainfall, 90% of which occurs in the wet season when eggs are laid. Lizard abundance is indirectly linked to rainfall through the interaction between Anolis eggs and their major predator, Solenopsis ants. More eggs are killed by ants when rainfall is relatively high because ants are more active and encounter more eggs than when rainfall is relatively low. While rainfall accounts for variability in abundance, it has not changed over time and thus may not account for the overall decline in abundance. Model selection of AICc analyses identified two other factors correlated with abundance. Abundance was positively correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) lagged by 1 yr. High SOI (and high abundance) is associated with cool and wet La Niña conditions and low values with dry and warm El Niño conditions. The prediction that low abundance is associated with dry and warm El Niño conditions (low SOI) conflicts with the negative correlation between abundance and rainfall where low abundance is associated with high rainfall. Moreover, abundance was negatively correlated with Tmin (minimum annual temperature). The mechanism by which increasing Tmin during the census period is linked to declining abundance is unknown. Three climatic factors are correlated with lizard abundance, but none of them explain why abundance has declined. A third objective was to examine the relationship between species richness and species dominance of Anolis communities with respect to rainfall patterns. Tropical forests typically have a maximal richness of 7–8 species. Our study sites in Panama have high species richness, but Anolis apletophallus individuals made up 96% of all records, an unexpected level of species dominance. Comparisons among sites suggest that the number of Anolis species in a community is related to annual rainfall, and dominance is related to seasonality of rainfall. Dry forests have few Anolis species and wet forests have as many as 7–8 species. Forests with short wet seasons (months with .100 mm rainfall) have a high likelihood that individuals of one species will dominate the community.

 

As the abstract reveals, the paper summarizes an extraordinary amount of fascinating research. But there are also some great stories. This is my favorite:

My trip to Panama to conduct the Christmas lizard count with Stan was normally a very special and much anticipated annual treat. One such year, however, was far different from the treat I had anticipated. I had taken my Boston Whaler, on what was to have been a quick trip to our remote AVA site to replace fallen flagging tape that marked transects. This was a boat trip of some 9 km from the BCI boat dock on the canal (northeastern) side of the island to the AVA boat tie up on the back (southwestern) side of the island. My mission accomplished, I left AVA midafternoon and was close to the half-way point when the motor of the Boston Whaler quit. Not only was I alone on the back side of BCI, but the strong dry season wind was pushing the boat away from BCI. To stop the boat from drifting farther, I used its single oar to steer it to the nearest channel marker where I tied up. I had faint hopes of rescue because boat traffic was infrequent; the most likely scenario was that I would sit in the boat until nightfall when the wind would die down and I could start to paddle. This is exactly what happened. Progress around BCI was very slow because I had to sit on the prow of the Whaler and pull the boat forward with the oar while alternating strokes from one side of the boat to the other to maintain a somewhat straight course. It was thus quite dark when I saw the first of many waves of large, low-flying aircraft pass overhead. I heard the steady drone of the air traffic and felt extremely isolated in my small boat in the dark. I did not know until the next day that, in the early hours of 20 December, I witnessed the beginning of the 1989 US invasion of Panama!

It was well after midnight when, to my great relief, I was intercepted by BCI guards on their regular island patrol just as I saw the buoy lights of the canal; the guards towed me the last several kilometers of what had been a physically and mentally challenging journey. The next day BCI was deemed unsafe and all scientists, guards, cooks (and their food supplies), etc. were ordered to leave the island by the Smithsonian. For the first time in its history as a nature reserve, the island’s biota was left to its own devices. All the island boats were commandeered to take the residents of BCI to Gamboa (Fig. 3), one of the initial targets for US military action. When we were allowed outside, we visited the remains of a Panama Defense Forces building and saw what automatic rifle fire could do to the simple wooden walls and floors of standard issue Panama Canal Company buildings. That memory became especially vivid on that evening when our group was taking shelter in the concrete stairwell of just such a building because of nearby sniper fire. Panama City and rural areas were so chaotic that the Panamanian evacuees could not go home to their families, not even to know, in some cases, if they were safe. Despite these challenges, the cooks continued to produce great meals for us, including a turkey dinner on Christmas Day. At the end ofDecember, we were allowed to return to BCI. The Anolis team completed the scheduled censusing of four sites, but what remained of my vacation time was too short to conduct planned experimental studies. I was on the first commercial flight to the United States after the invasion, and, for the very first time, I was happy to leave Panama.

Read all about it in Caribbean Herpetology, freely available online. Here’s the Abstract:

Green anoles of the Anolis carolinensis group are divided into the carolinensis and isolepis subgroups according to a consensus of molecular phylogenies. Species in the Anolis isolepis subgroup (A. altitudinalis, A. isolepis, A. oporinus, and A. toldo) are endemic to Cuba and the highest diversity is concentrated in forested areas of eastern Cuba. Here, we describe a new species of this subgroup from western Cuba based on genetic and morphological differences from other species. Our phylogenetic analysis, based on DNA sequences, includes all of the known species and suggests that the new species is more closely related to A. altitudinalis, A. oporinus, and A. toldo than to the widespread A. isolepis. In addition, we provide a new hypothesis on the taxonomic status of A. incredulus and recommend that it no longer be considered as a species in the A. carolinensis group. Due to the lack of a diagnosis, and poor condition, of the only available specimen, we consider A. incredulus as a species inquirenda. New morphological and genetic data of recently collected specimens of A. oporinus and A. toldo will provide complementary information about these species known from one or a few specimens.

And here are some similar Cuban species:

This important herpetological updated appeared in the Miami Herald today.

Dave Barry: Fellow Floridians, beware of toilet lizards and rising iguana aggression

BY DAVE BARRY UPDATED JULY 15, 2022 2:47 PM

We need to talk about the lizards. I think they’re up to something.

Here in South Florida we’re accustomed to lizards, of course; they’re everywhere. When I moved here decades ago, the lizards were one of the things I had to adjust to, along with the hurricanes, the 250 percent humidity, and the fact that Miami drivers actually speed up for stop signs.

But the lizards didn’t bother me, because even though there were a lot of them, they were small and cute and non-threatening. They seemed to spend most of their time just standing around doing nothing, like members of a miniature highway-repair crew.

The most aggressive lizard behavior I’d see was the occasional male lizard trying to attract a sex partner by displaying the skin flap under his chin, which is called a “dewlap.” Apparently it is a strongly held belief among male lizards that the chicks really go for a guy with a big dewlap. It’s kind of like weight-lifter human males who believe human females are attracted to large biceps and consequently wear tank tops everywhere, including funerals.

But I was not threatened — nor, for the record, attracted — by the dewlap displays. I left the lizards alone, and the lizards left me alone. If I encountered lizards, say, on a sidewalk, they always respectfully skittered out of the way, in recognition of the fact that I was, compared to them, Godzilla.

But lately the lizards are different.

I don’t know what’s causing it. Maybe it’s global climate change. Maybe there was a leak from some kind of top-secret Chinese lizard laboratory. Whatever the cause, there seem to be a lot more lizards around than usual. But what’s really disturbing is that many of these appear to be a new kind of lizard: They’re bigger, and they’re uglier. They’re not the cute li’l Geico Gecko types. They’re more along the lines of junior-varsity velociraptors.

And they have an attitude. More and more, when I encounter sidewalk lizards, they do not skitter away. At best they casually saunter off in an insolent manner. I suspect they may also be vaping.

Sometimes these lizards don’t move at all: They just stand there defiantly, giving me that beady lizard eyeball, clearly conveying, by their body language, the message: “Why should I fear YOU? You have a small dewlap!”

Which, much as it pains me to admit it, is true.

Perhaps you think I’m overreacting. Perhaps you’re thinking, “OK, maybe the lizards are getting bigger and more aggressive. But why should I care? I spend most of my time indoors anyway, so this issue doesn’t really affect ME.” Oh really? Let me ask you a question: While you’re indoors, do you ever have occasion to use a toilet? I ask because of an alarming report I saw July 8 on NBC6 TV news. The report begins with a camera shot looking down into a toilet bowl, which contains a large iguana. As we’re seeing this, news anchors Jawan Strader and Jackie Nespral have the following exchange:

STRADER: Imagine walking into your bathroom at home and seeing this! An iguana in the toilet!

NESPRAL: OK, I don’t want to imagine that.

This exchange introduces a report concerning retirees Janet and Bruce Bleier, who, since moving to Hollywood from Long Island, have encountered not one, but TWO commode iguanas

The first time was in October, when Bruce went to use the bathroom late one night.

“I yelled to my wife, ‘There’s an alligator in the toilet!’ ” he recalls.

Janet discovered the second iguana. She offers this advice to NBC6 viewers: “Look before you sit.”

In both cases, the Bleiers called Harold Rondan, proprietor of a company called Iguana Lifestyles, who came and took the iguana away. (Iguana removal is a major industry in South Florida.)

Perhaps at this point you’re thinking, “OK, so this one couple had two iguanas show up in their toilet. It’s probably just a fluke. It’s not like it’s an epidemic.”

Oh really? Well perhaps you would be interested to know that on July 10, just two days after the NBC6 report about the Bleiers, another local station, WSVN 7News, carried a report about another Hollywood resident, Michelle Reynolds, who came downstairs one evening and looked into her toilet. Guess what she found?

That’s right: Rudy Giuliani.

No, that would be pretty great, but that’s not what happened. She found an iguana. A LARGE iguana.

“He took up most of the toilet bowl,” she tells 7News. There’s video of the iguana being removed, again by Harold Rondan of Iguana Lifestyles, who identifies it as a Mexican spiny-tailed iguana. Even by iguana standards, this is an ugly animal, and it does not look happy. You can tell by its facial expression that its goal in life is to grow much bigger so that one day it can come back and eat Harold Rondan of Iguana Lifestyles.

And that’s not the end of our story. On July 11, one day later, the Bleiers were once again on the local TV news. It turns out they had yet another toilet iguana. This was their THIRD.

So please don’t try to tell me this isn’t an epidemic.

I spoke by phone with Janet Bleier, who said she and her husband are trying, with the help of Hollywood authorities, to figure out how the iguanas are getting in, but so far they’ve had no luck.

I asked her if they ever encountered toilet iguanas when they lived in Long Island.

“Nope, nope, nope,” she said, adding, “nope.”

I asked her if they had considered moving back to Long Island, and she said they had not, but she added this: “We never, ever, walk into one of our bathrooms any more without checking. Even if we’re not going to use the toilet, we look.”

In case you think this epidemic is confined to Hollywood, I urge you to Google “toilet lizards.” You’ll discover that this has been going on for a while now, and not just in Florida; it’s happening in warmer climates all over the world.

So I repeat: The lizards are up to something. But what? Are they planning some kind of coordinated attack? Are we going to find ourselves in a real-life version of the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller movie “The Birds,” in which suddenly, out of nowhere, a peaceful California village is terrorized by a huge, mysterious flock of violent toilet iguanas?

I don’t have the answers. As a journalist, all I can do is raise questions, in hopes of getting internet clicks and creating widespread panic. It’s up to the authorities to take whatever steps are necessary to end this crisis, even if that ultimately means relocating the entire population of South Florida to Long Island.

But for now we all need to do our part. This means keeping our toilet lids down, of course, but it also means standing up to the lizards and letting them know we’re not afraid of them, even though we actually are. The next time you encounter a lizard, either on the sidewalk or, God forbid, in your bathroom, look it straight in whichever eyeball is closest to you and tell it, in a firm, clear voice: “We know what you’re up to.“ If it’s a Mexican spiny-tailed iguana, you should say this in Spanish.

Also, if you have a dewlap, you should display it. They respect that.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/dave-barry/article263508388.html#storylink=cpy

Dr. Phillip Smith of Georgia wrote to Anole Annals:

“For the past several days one of my anole friends has appeared at my back door windows at about 12:30 PM.  I have studied and played violin as a pastime since about 1947, and play a bit every day. I had happened to choose that time on the first day and after a few minutes my attention was drawn to this little guy poking his nose farther and farther in a jabbing way into the window as he “moon-walked” along the side of each pane.  He had glided down to the bottom of the door window when I really began to watch, and it was so in synch with the music that I kept playing for a bit.  

He kept up his activity, sometimes appearing almost completely, always making a rocking, jabbing movement with his body, gradually moving to his right and the other side of the window.  When he got there he really took off upward with his head always extending onto the glass and “slid” to nearly the top of the door, then gradually worked back down.  By then I had been watching for several minutes, and realized this was no accident (or at least so I projected).  

I got my iPhone and began to try to capture his activity.  Of course this meant the music stopped, and the activity diminished pretty quickly.  When this became obvious I hustled back to my violin and began to play.  Within a very short time he was back at it, and he stayed for at least a half hour.

The door opens on a small slab, about ten feet square as is common in condos, with grass around its two sides and a shed along the left side.  I have quite a few large potted plants including a nine-foot yellow pine and a climbing rose on my back fence, many of which have been there for years.  The eave overhangs the back wall and door until about 1:30 at this time of year, so is shaded when he comes, and he has come for several days in a row, always with similar interaction.  I don’t even know how or what anoles (If he is indeed one) hear and was a little surprised he could hear through the glass, but then it occurred to me he might be sensing the vibration through his feet.  

I am a retired physician and very interested in this phenomenon, and experienced enough in scientific literature to know it would take me “forever” to ferret out information truly relevant to this interaction and my little friend, which is why I thought to contact you in this way.”

Dr. Smith then provided two videos, which he describes (see videos at bottom):

“The “screen” for the interaction is a French door with five apparent panes of glass, facing due west with a shading, overhanging eave above it, which becomes sun-exposed at about 2:20 PM.  The videos and photos were all taken in the period after 11 AM, when the anole appeared only once—all other “visits” were between 12:50 and 1:30.  

Sadly the reason the anole attracted my attention on the first interaction was that he/she moved very actively around the lower 1/3 of the door glass frequently making jabbing, bobbing up and down movements along the bottom and once “moon-walking” almost all the way up the left side and back down.  These movements were almost continuous for more than 30 minutes, and did not suggest hunting.  But because I could not photograph this and play the music at the same time, and I had not previously used the “selfie stick” I had, the later videos don’t show much of this.  

There are periods of activity and some fairly long periods of simply “freezing” in place, sometimes off the edge of the glass out of view.  

In the longer video I couldn’t get both the very top and bottom of the glass in the frame where I could anchor the camera stand, and the anole really doesn’t appear until just after 5 minutes.  From the start his primary attention seems to be the insect life on the outside of the door.  He moves up and down the right side of the glass often looking toward the middle of the door and from time to time scratching his head with his back foot (I think usually his left) as @ 16 minutes 59 seconds.  

There is a fairly active section from 23:30 to the end of this video, especially a dart downward to nail a bug @ 27:09.

The overall impression of the 11 and a half minute video is similar. The anole is present from the beginning with movements up and down from one pane to another, and his intent seems to be to get something to eat.  

I don’t think there is a particularly convincing relation of his movements to the music in either of these.”

 

Part I: Anolis lamari

Anoles in the Caribbean have been an evolutionary and ecological model system for decades. But as readers of this blog will know, much less is known about the approximately 200 species of the mainland. Colombia is the most species-rich region for anoles, with around 70 species, and harbors an active and historical group of anole workers. Recently, much research has addressed many of the enigmatic anole forms, but we still have much to learn.

The Anolis tigrinus group (sensu Williams, 1976) consists of A. tigrinus, A. solitarius, A. nasofrontalis, A. pseudotigrinus, A. santamartae. A. menta, A. ruizii, A. lamarii, A. paravertibralis and A. umbrivagus. Despite the informal origin of this group, these species form a clade with A. laevis in Poe et al.’s 2017 phylogenetic analysis and should likely be treated as a natural unit. With Ivan Prates and collaborators’ rediscovery of A. pseudotigrinus and A. nasofrontalis (Prates et al., 2017), as well as work on the anoles of Venezuela (Ugeuto et al., 2009), the Colombian forms within this group remain among the least known anoles.

Among tigrinus-group anoles within Colombia, Anolis ruizii and A. lamari inhabit the Amazonian Andean slope of the Cordillera Oriental, whereas A. menta, A. solitarius, A. santamartae, A. umbrivagus, and A. paravertebralis occupy the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta range in the northeast corner of the country.

The tigrinus-group anoles are small species with an SVL around 50 mm. They are characterized by large plate-like head scales, short limbs, and cryptic coloration. Dewlaps in males tend to be a white and yellow-orange, while female dewlap coloration varies by species. Another trait shared by each member of the group is a startling dearth of information on each of them. Outside of broad-scale phylogenetic estimates of the entire genus, very little published literature exists regarding anything more than the existence of any of these species. The original descriptions of these lizards involve small sample sizes (from 1 to 11 individuals), and collections outside of the type series are limited.

The hunt for Anolis lamari

In January of 2020, I was fortunate to be invited on an anole hunt with Steve Poe, as we attempted to learn a bit more about several forms listed within this group. Our main research involved work on the Santa Marta anoles with Beto Rueda-Solano and José Luis Pérez-González (see next blog post). But with a few days in the Bogotá area before our formal research commitment, we elected to search for the elusive Anolis lamari on the Amazonian Andean slope. This species was described from a single male specimen collected by Will Lamar in 1980 and had not been recorded in the ensuing four decades. Field notes and the collected male allowed Williams (1992) to publish Lamar’s find as a new species. After a flight into Bogotá, we headed south through the town of Guayabetal. We stopped off for some local cuisine and washed lunch down with our first can of Cerveza Aguila. Officially in country.

From there, we moved on to our lodging that night. Based on the description of the type locality, Steve had pinpointed several areas to the west of Guayabetal that could potentially harbor Anolis lamari. We reached our quaint room tucked in to the mountains near the Rio Blanco. After meeting our hosts Gilberto and Julia, we headed to bed in the Colombian afternoon to get ready for a night of herping. Lodging pros: great location; pleasant setting with secondary anole habitat; friendly hosts; price of $9/night (+$1 cleaning fee). Lodging con: regular boisterous well-attended campesino Aguila fiesta outside our window during prime sleep hours in the afternoon.

Steve’s preferred method for finding anoles involves waiting until nightfall before heading out with a couple high-power lights and ambushing the anoles while they sleep. Given the genus-wide propensity for sleeping on exposed perches (e.g. leaves, twigs), anoles offer an easier target at night. Cryptic lichenous coloration is of little use to the lizard when they decide to sleep against a green background, or present a raised profile on twigs above the ground. As a further advantage to the herper, their reduced awareness allows for easy capture by hand.

In this style, we set out at nightfall to begin our search. Cruising along the local roads, we stopped at a well-forested area Steve had estimated as the potential actual site of collection of the type specimen of Anolis lamari (4.1676° N, 73.8192° W; Datum WGS 1984; 1625 m elevation). Within the first ten minutes we had found an anole! After a collaborative effort to secure the lizard in hand, we arrived at the moment of truth – the dewlap. Unfurling it, we found an unusual black dewlap with white scales (pictured below). For having no expectations about what the dewlap would reveal, the uncommon black color came as a surprise to me. The dewlap did not match William’s description of the male, leading to the possible conclusions

that we either had a female A. lamari or a new species entirely. After a few minutes of photography, we continued our search at the suspected type locality. In another 90 minutes we found an adult male and seven additional lizards for a nice series of six adult females, one adult male, and two juveniles. The presence of the male matching Williams’ description confirmed our black-dewlapped individual was indeed the first record of a lamari female. Thrilled with our success, we decided to broaden our sampling efforts in the surrounding territory and headed off into the night. We had found one species, an apparent rediscovery of A. lamari, and weren’t too far from the type locality of A. inderenae – what else might be out there?

Well, it turns out not much. Despite our best efforts until morning we found no anoles outside of the quarter mile stretch in which we had found Anolis lamari. We sampled high. We sampled low. We sampled pristine forests, disturbed roadsides and, really, anywhere with a plant that might harbor a sleeping anole. We searched for anoles all night, but ended up with nothing but a skunk for the rest of the night. As the sun came up over the mountains, we decided to call it a night, ecstatic at finding a species that hadn’t been officially seen in three decades and eager to try again.

After sleeping through the day, we redoubled our efforts the following evening and encountered the same quizzical narrow geographic pattern. We found more Anolis lamari at a brief stop at the type locality, but no anoles anywhere else. We searched the surrounding 15 km over an elevational range of 1000 to 2000 meters without success. We took our photographs and bid adios to the type locality of Anolis lamari.

A more scientific treatise on our work with Anolis lamari can be found here in our paper published in Herpetology Notes.

Future Directions

As would be expected, newfound knowledge leads to many more questions. Reviewing the description of Anolis ruizii, we find that females of that species also are described to have a black dewlap similar to what we found in A. lamari. The trait Williams purported to distinguish A. lamari and A. ruizii is the presence of a parietal spur—a bony process extending posteriorly from the skull–in lamari (absent in ruizii). We found this spur to be variably present not only in our sample of A. lamari, but also in previous specimen observations of several other species within the tigrinus group. The spur is most prominent in large males, which is consistent with the type specimen Williams was working with. Furthermore, both A. lamari and A. ruizii are found along the Amazonian slope of the Andean Cordillera Oriental, albeit with significant distance between their type localities. Our best guess at this point is that A. lamari is a junior synonym of A. ruizii. Further work to include broad sampling of the region between the two type localities is warranted to confirm or refute this hypothesis.

The next issue that deserves a second look is the apparent lack of congeners as well as the extremely narrow observed range of Anolis lamari. We found A. lamari in good numbers in a roughly quarter mile stretch of road, but found no other anoles in two nights of searching. The most likely explanation is that, in our limited sampling, we simply missed on some congeners that were there (minimally, A. fuscoauratus and a green anole like A. huilae would be expected). Alternatively, the apparent limited distribution of A. lamari may have been an artifact of the dry season (our success occurred at a creek-crossing that was noticeably wetter than most other habitat we could find; see Ryan and Poe 2014), or the elevation may have played a factor in reducing diversity. Other anole species (e.g. A. scypheus, A. indernae) have been found at comparable elevations nearby and further sampling efforts may reveal congeners sympatric to A. lamari. Worth noting: other species within the group (menta, solitarius) also appear to exist as “solitary” anoles (see Williams et al. 1970; see next blog post).

The third major question calls for life history data. While Steve’s methods are adept for collecting rare anoles, they exclude the possibility of even minimal active observations for anole species. The diurnal ecology of Anolis lamari (and many other mainland forms) remains virtually unknown. The original description of A. lamari indicates that they may crawl on the ground and are sluggish in cold weather. We suspect there’s plenty more to say there.

Hello everyone.  In January 2018 I encountered an anole that superficially resembles A. lyra at Recinto de los Suenos in southwest-central Colombia above Cali in the Cordillera Occidental at 3.56810 N x -76.58848 W and 1900 m ASL. However, this species has only been documented from the Pacific lowlands to my knowledge, and although the similar-looking A. vittigerus does occur on the in the Cordillera Occidental, it has only been documented far to the north (over 150 mi / 250 km). This individual lacks the characteristic black spot in the middle of the dewlap of both species. I also found A. antonii, A. eulaemus, and A. ventrimaculatus at the same site, but none of those species even remotely resemble this individual, of which I found only one specimen.  Any thoughts on its ID would be welcome.  Thanks.

John

 

New literature alert!

Pinocchio lizards and other lizards bearing rostral appendages − the peculiar habitus of the draconine agamid Harpesaurus tricinctus with highlights on its ecological implications and convergence with its New World equivalent, the dactyloid Anolis proboscis

 

In Salamandra

Ineich, Koppetsch, and Böhme (2022)

Abstract:

Vinciguerra, D. 1933. Descrizione di una nuova specie di Harpesaurus di Sumatra. Ann. Mus. civ. stor. nat. Genova 56: 355-357.

I believe that several ways exist to do Science in Herpetology. Proposing and experimentally verifying hypotheses, for example, that a species is new to science, is one of them. But sometimes, important discoveries come out of nowhere, at least in appearance. In fact, they come from unrelated data and observations which, in certain circumstances, come together in a mind and lead to a concrete result.

I had the chance to make several discoveries of this nature during my career. The first concerns a very abundant and widely distributed small Pacific skink that everyone thought was a single species, Emoia cyanura. By observing several thousand specimens in the laboratory, I noted certain morphological and coloring characters whose presence varied from one individual to another, but many were linked to each other. I left it at that, but once in the field in French Polynesia a few years later, very quickly I realized that all these characters made it possible to highlight two sympatric, but not quite syntopic, species that everyone was confusing until my thesis work in 1987. Immense pleasure!

The second discovery is that of an external supralabial gland whose excretion orifice is visible in all snakes of the genus Echis. Hundreds of herpetologists have counted the supralabial scales in these snakes without seeing this orifice, which is so obvious now.

The third discovery in my career as a herpetologist is that of Bocourt’s terrifying skink (Phoboscincus bocourti). It was on a small tiny island in New Caledonia that I found, in 2003, a very large lizard that had been considered extinct for almost 150 years. Never such a discovery was imaginable, even less in this small place yet already explored by herpetologists.

Now let’s see my fourth and most recent discovery. Being responsible for the collections of squamate reptiles at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris from 1988 until 2014, I often took photographs of lizards to respond to requests from colleagues. This is how, at the beginning of my career, I was asked to photograph a very original little Asian draconine agamid due to the presence of a relatively long flexible rostrum at the front of its head. The origin of this unique specimen is obscure because only “Java” is indicated without a collector’s name. Auguste Duméril described this specimen in 1851 as a new species, Harpesaurus tricinctus. There is a vellum which represents this lizard still relatively fresh with some colors preserved. The lizard has never been found since and is considered extinct.

In December 2016 I was looking at issue 4 of volume 47 of Herpetological Review. In this issue, an advertisement for the 11th Latin American Congress of Herpetology in Quito, Ecuador was illustrated with a photograph of a strange lizard that immediately caught my eye. I really thought I was dreaming when I saw this image. This lizard looked almost totally like H. tricinctus, yet it was a South American species! At first, I thought that Duméril was mistaken and that his Asian agamid was a South American dactyloid. Examination of complementary material in the collections quickly showed that these were indeed two distinct species from different families, one Asian (Agamidae) and the other South American, Anolis proboscis (Dactyloidae). The latter was long, mysterious and no data were published on its ecology until 2007. From that year, the species was rediscovered and its ecology described. I then thought that this extreme convergence reflected a quite comparable ecology between A. proboscis and H. tricinctus, the latter being considered extinct. The written article was submitted to the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology in 2019 but was not accepted even before its passage by the reviewers. I then contacted Wolfgang Böhme and Thore Koppetsch, who were enthusiastic to join me in completing this project. Both have completed my work and this association has allowed its publication in the famous journal Salamandra in May 2022 (available here). The well-known ecology of the first lizard should make it possible to rediscover the Asian agamid and make it a Lazarus species. Another species of the genus, Harpesaurus modiglianii, was rediscovered in Sumatra in 2020, after almost 130 years without observation. All hopes are therefore allowed to find H. tricinctus based on the ecological information obtained from its convergent dactyloid.

All the data resulting from this work is available in:

Ineich I, Koppetsch T, Böhme W. 2022 – Pinocchio lizards and other lizards bearing rostral appendages − the peculiar habitus of the draconine agamid Harpesaurus tricinctus with highlights on its ecological implications and convergence with its New World equivalent, the dactyloid Anolis proboscis. Salamandra 58(2):123-138.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ivan-Ineich/research