Tag: brown anole

Louis Shanghan of the LA Times reports on Greg Pauly‘s field surveys of non-native Cuban brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) and geckos in Orange County neighborhoods

sagrei_california

“The anoles, which are native to Cuba, arrived here about a decade ago as stowaways in nursery plants,” Pauly said as the team strode down a leafy street, methodically scanning sidewalks, brick walls and tree trunks for the stick-like shapes of lizards basking in the sun. “Today, there’s at least 10 to 20 per residential lot in this neighborhood alone.”

“There’s a nice one over there,” he said, nodding toward an anole – about five inches long, adorned with light brown speckles and a bright line running from head to tail – clinging to the side of a front-yard planter box.

Full story here: Scientists survey an Orange County neighborhood’s nonnative lizard populations

As a side note, the details for the original record (as far as I know) of A. sagrei in California are as follows:

The first published documentation was in Herpetological Review 45(4), 2014, an edited version of which you can read below:

ANOLIS SAGREI (Cuban Brown Anole). USA: CALIFORNIA: San Diego Co.: Vista, elev. 158 m) 19 July 2014.
C. Mahrdt, E. Ervin, and L. Geiger. Verified by Bradford D. Hollingsworth. San Diego Natural History Museum (SDSNH 76128–76133).

New county and state record (Granatosky and Krysko 2013. IRCF Rept. Amphib. 20[4]:190–191)
Four adult males and two hatchling specimens were collected on a one-acre parcel landscaped with palms, cycads, and several species of tropical plants and ground cover. Several boulders scattered throughout the parcel were used as perch sites for male lizards. An additional 16 adults and six hatchlings were observed in the two-hour site visit (1030–1230 h). Adults were also observed beyond the property indicating that this population is established and likely expanding through the contiguous tropical landscaping of neighboring properties. According to the property owner, he first observed the species in August 2012 shortly after receiving shipments of palm trees in May–August originating from suppliers located in the Hawaiian Islands.

CLARK R. MAHRDT, Department of Herpetology, San Diego Natural History Museum, San Diego, California 92102, USA (e-mail: leopardlizard@ cox.net);
EDWARD L. ERVIN, Merkel & Associates, Inc., 5434 Ruffin Road, San Diego, California 92123, USA;
GARY NAFIS, (www.californiaherps.com).

More information on A. sagrei in California can be found here

Request For Brown Anole (A. Sagrei) Photographs

By Veronica Gomez-Pourroy

On September 22, 2013

In Anole Photographs

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.

Orange sagrei

By Sean Giery

On July 29, 2011

In Introduced Anoles, Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field

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.

Anoles of the Florida Keys

By Jonathan Losos

On July 10, 2011

In Introduced Anoles, Natural History Observations

Not an anole, but plays one on TV. Photo from Dust Tracks on the Web (http://dusttracks.com/)

Janson Jones is at it again. Having just driven about as cross-continent as you can get, from Alaska to the Florida Keys, he is now waxing eloquent on the lizards of that delightful island string. Today’s post is about introduced green iguanas, which apparently are everywhere and spreading, but yesterday he posted twice, on brown anoles (A. sagrei) and bark anoles (A. distichus) , with some keen observations on interactions between the two. Most notably, he’s noticed on multiple occasions that the larger browns chase off the the daintier barks.

postscript: Just as I hit the “post” button, Jones put up another of his own, with further observations on bark anoles and outlining what would make an excellent Ph.D. dissertation project. Plus, this intriguing observation:

“…the iPad of anoles in the Florida Keys. They’re right on the edge, living in the third space, transitory ground between the browns on the ground and the greens in the trees. They’re not iPhones, but they’re not desktops either. Right in the middle — and perhaps drawing business from both sides?”