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.
Tag: Anolis sagrei Page 3 of 5
Brown anoles. Photo courtesy Bob Reed
Hello fellow scientists and photography aficionados!
My name is Veronica Gomez-Pourroy and this is week has been laden with firsts for me: first time living in the US, first week at the Losos Lab, and now… the first post in this brilliant blog!! I am a zoologist on my third semester of my Evolutionary Biology masters, and I’ve begun working on my first (of two) Master’s thesis. I will be investigating phenotypic variation in the widespread and very cool Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei), working with Jonathan Losos and Marta López Darias.
One of the elements we’d like to look into is variation in skin patterning and dewlap colouration – but at the moment I’m using specimens from museum collections and as we know, colour gets corrupted soon after an animal is “pickled.” For this reason, I am asking for your help to compile a comprehensive collection of pictures of A. sagrei–both males and females–that span most of their range. If you’d like to share your pictures with us, please email them to:
veronica.gomez-pourroy@evobio.eu
and include the location and, if possible, date when the photo was shot. I will be forever grateful for any help, and will acknowledge you in my thesis, of course!!
A huge thank you in advance, I’ll keep you posted on the progress made.
In collaboration with the Conservation Biology course taught by Dr. Karen Beard here at Utah State University, where I am a Ph.D. student, I have been involved in gathering life history data on ~400 species of reptiles that have been introduced outside of their native ranges for an analysis of how life history traits (e.g., diet, fecundity, longevity) interact with other factors to influence the likelihood of successful establishment. Appendix A of Fred Kraus’ 2009 book Alien Reptiles and Amphibians is the source of the species list we are using, and included in this analysis are 26 species of Anolis. This is where you come in.
First, we coded all anoles as (i) sexually-dichromatic, (ii) diurnal, (iii) non-venomous, (iv) oviparous, (v) omnivores that lack (vi) temperature-dependent sex determination and (vii) parthenogenesis. Is anyone aware of any exceptions to these seven generalizations?
Second, we searched for data on clutch size, clutch frequency, incubation time, and longevity. The Anole Classics section of this site and the Biodiversity Heritage Library were particularly useful. After conducting what I feel to be a pretty thorough literature scavenger hunt, I am forced to conclude that some of these data simply do not exist at the species level for all of the species we’re interested in, or are not explicitly stated in a way that is obvious to a non-anole-expert. Of course, there is a lot of literature, including many books that I don’t have access to, and there are also lots of credible observations that don’t get published. I’m hoping that some of the readership here can help fill in at least some of the blanks in the table below. As one member of the team, I did not collect all of the data that are filled in myself, nor have I personally vetted every value, so if you spot an error please do point it out.
Two important points:
- Many environmental factors obviously influence the life history parameters of our beloved and wonderfully plastic reptiles, so we appreciate that many of these values would be better represented by ranges and are dependent on latitude, altitude, climate, and many other factors. Where a range is published, we are using its median value.
- I should also emphasize that, because of the large size of this study and the diversity of taxa included (ranging in size from giants like Burmese Pythons, Nile Crocodiles, and Aldabra Tortoises to, well, anoles and blindsnakes), it is more important for the data to reflect the relative values of these life history parameters across all anoles (and all reptiles) than it is to specifically and precisely represent all known variation within a given species of anole.
Without further ado (for your enjoyment, and because I know from my own blog that nobody reads posts lacking pictures, I’ve embedded an image of each species):
| Species | Median clutch size | Median clutches per year | Incubation time (days) | Maximum longevity (months) |
 A. aeneus |
2 | |||
 A. baleatus |
||||
 A.bimaculatus |
2 | 43 | 84 | |
 A. carolinensis |
1.15 | 6 | 41.5 | 65 |
 A.chlorocyanus |
1 | 18 | ||
 A. conspersus |
1 | |||
 A. cristatellus |
2.5 | 18 | 83 | |
 A. cybotes |
1 | 18 | 45 | |
 A. distichus |
1 | 16 | 45.5 | |
 A. equestris |
1 | 1 | 48 | 149 |
 A. extremus |
||||
 A. ferreus |
1 | 18 | ||
 A. garmani |
1.5 | 18 | 67 | |
 A. grahami |
1 | |||
 A. leachii |
||||
 A. lineatus |
||||
 A. lucius |
1 | 3.5 | 60 | |
 A. marmoratus |
2 | 50 | ||
 A. maynardi |
||||
 A. porcatus |
1 | 18 | 63.5 | |
 A. pulchellus |
1 | |||
 A. richardii |
1 | |||
 A. sagrei |
2 | 20 | 32 | 22 |
 A. stratulus |
||||
 A. trinitatis |
2 | 50 | ||
 A. wattsi |
1 |
Thanks in advance. I think this is a great blog and I hope to post something more interesting on here soon.
Shelby Prindaville, Polychrotidae (Heatstack) detail, watercolor and pencil on paper, 30×22″, 2011
My watercolor drawings and figurative sculptures feature a variety of Anolis lizards. The visually fascinating characteristics of anoles combined with their small size yet reptilian “otherness” (occupying a middle ground between too-easily-anthropomorphized mammals and too-alien fish or invertebrates) make anoles an ideal animal representative for my broader ecological interests.
Shelby Prindaville, Anolis proboscis (Pair), watercolor, 3P art medium, and pencil on translucent paper, 16×24″, 2012
The drawings and sculptures I create with anoles use their innate character and abilities to explore a purgatorial space. The first drawing in the watercolor series puts anoles in place of rats in the rat king myth made famous in The Nutcracker; the use of anoles allows a way out of the diseased mass through voluntary autotomy and allegorically demonstrates that repairing environments requires sacrifice. Other drawings pull from subjects ranging from the Ouroboros to Terry Pratchett’s allegory of summer.
Shelby Prindaville, Anolis carolinensis and Mimosa Pudica (Falling), watercolor and pencil on velvet paper, 27×19″, 2012
My desire to sculpt small yet still anatomically accurate anoles has actually led to the development of a new polymer medium: 3P QuickCure Clay. I collaborate with LSU Chemistry Professor John Pojman and his company 3P, and my suggestion to create a clay and its subsequent development has allowed me to use a batch-curing process that achieves the intricately detailed results below.
Shelby Prindaville, Polychrotidae (Dive and Climb), 3P Clay, 4x8x2.5″, 2012
To see larger images or more of my artwork, please visit shelbyprindaville.com.
Not content with kicking butt in Florida, Anolis sagrei has recently been reported from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Photo by Melissa Losos.
Anole Annals has previously reported on the ongoing interactions between A. cristatellus and A. sagrei in Miami (for example, here and cool video here), as well as the invasion of Costa Rica by A. cristatellus. Now the plot has thickened.
In a 2009 paper in Zootaxa, Savage and Bolaños reported that A. sagrei had been collected in the vicinity of Limon, the same region in which A. cristatellus also has been introduced. Jay Savage has kindly provided further information that A. sagrei is not only common in some parts of central Limon, where A. cristatellus is also known to be common, but it is also reported to be common at a Shell gas station in the nearby town of Moin, a town in which, again, A. cristatellus is common. It will be interesting to see how rapidly A. sagrei spreads in Costa Rica, and how the two species interact. One interesting twist: in Miami, it is A. cristatellus that has invaded in the presence of an already well-established A. sagrei; in Costa Rica, the table is turned. There’s a great research project waiting to be done here!
Studying the brown anole (Anolis sagrei) in Taiwan has presented me with numerous new opportunities, one of which is an introduction into parasitology.
A Kiricephalus pattoni nymph under the skin of a female brown anole (Anolis sagrei), collected in southwestern Taiwan.
The first parasites I found in A. sagrei in Taiwan were relatively large worm-like parasites that are often visible as a lump under the skin of the lizard. Unfortunately, my first samples were lost by the person I had sent them to for identification. But luckily, I found some more, and with the assistance of C.R. Bursey and S.R. Goldberg, the parasites were identified as the nymphs of the pentastome, Kiricephalus pattoni. Together we reported A. sagrei as a new host of this parasite in Taiwan (Norval et al., 2009).
Brown phase green anole. Photo by Janson Jones at Dust Tracks on the Web (http://dusttracks.com/)
At Dust Tracks on the Web, Janson Jones posts some interesting observations on green anoles (A. carolinensis) in northern Florida and southern Georgia, where the brown anole (A. sagrei) has yet to invade. To cut to the chase, he finds the green anoles to be larger, to be brown more often, and to perch much lower than green anoles do in central Florida in the presence of brown anoles.
The effect of brown anoles on greens in Florida has been surprisingly poorly documented. Just as surprisingly, very little information exists in the scientific literature on the habitat use, behavior, and other aspects of green anole natural history in places where they occur by themselves. We have almost no useful data on what green anole biology was like in Florida pre-sagrei, nor few data from areas where sagrei does not occur today. Detailed and quantitative studies of such populations would be particularly useful, as well as repeated surveys through time in areas that brown anoles may eventually invade to document what happens when they get there (of course, repeated surveys in areas that brown anoles don’t invade would be important to, as controls). Those of you who live in appropriate areas, get to it!
I saw the recent posts about orange/red sagrei and I thought I might contribute another observation of orange-colored brown anoles. A few years ago while assisting another grad student with his dissertation work I spotted a few orange-colored brown anoles in a suburban yard in S. Florida. What I thought was most interesting about the observation was that: 1) there were multiple males (2-3) with orange color, and 2) many of the palms on which lizards were perched were a similar orange color. It got me thinking that it could be more than a coincidence.
The orange color on the trees, sidewalks, and other hard substrates in the area is from ground water with a high concentration of iron. When sprayed on the surface with sprinklers it mixes with oxygen and leaves an orange color. Many houses, signs, sidewalks, and even cars in S. Florida are graced with an arc or two of orange residue. I’ve yet to revisit this lawn or surrounding houses, but I bet there are quite a few more houses with orange lizards. For what it’s worth, I see and catch a lot of brown anoles further south in the Miami area and this is the only case of red/orange brown anoles I’ve seen yet. It’s possible that these lizards were covered in rust, but it didn’t look like it when I got one in my hand. It’s also interesting that all of the photos I’ve seen of orange-colored brown anoles are male, however I’ve only seen about 4 cases including this observation. Oh, and the dewlaps on these males were normal(ish), not like the cool one recently posted by Joe Burgess.
Those rascals! I’ve heard reports of this before, but never seen a photo. I wonder if it’s always a male green anole, or whether both ways occur. In any case, it would be shocking if such liaisons led to the production of hybrid offspring, given that the two species belong to evolutionary lineages that separated many many millions of years ago.
A figure illustrating dewlap color variation in the distichus species group from Anthony Geneva's award winning poster.
Two posters on anole evolution presented at JMIH last weekend were honored with SSAR poster awards. Anthony Geneva, a PhD student at the University of Rochester took home the prize in the Evolution, Genetics, & Systematics category for his poster on “A Multi-locus Molecular Phylogeny of Distichoid Anoles.” Mingna Zhuang, an undergraduate researcher at UC Berkeley, won in the Ecology, Natural History, Distribution, & Behavior category for her poster on “Comparative Gliding Performance of Anolis carolinensis and Anolis sagrei.” Although not on anoles, it also bears noting that Daniel Scantlebury’s study of adaptive radiation in Sphaerodactylus – which has been inspired partly by work on Anolis – won the SSAR’s Henri Seibert Award for best student talk on Evolution/Systematics. Congrats to Anthony, Mingna, and Dan!