Photo by Steven Kurniawidjaja, iNaturalist
Hello! Hope you had a good Thursday!
I moved #DidYouAnole and shortened it for this week because of the holiday. We aren’t talking about one specific anole (or lizard) today, but just ideas on an observed behaviour.
Recently someone posted a picture of curly-tailed Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei) noting that they had been seeing this recently with the brown anoles in their area.
This intensity of tail curling, while typical of curly-tailed lizards (they’re named for it!), isn’t all too uncommon in anoles. For curly-tailed lizards, their tail curl is possibly used as part of anti-predator behaviour, meaning it helps them distract a predator away from their bodies, or makes them look bigger. Anoles also use their tails in a similar way, waving them during aggressive displays against other males and predators.
Photo by Bill Lucas, iNaturalist
Lizards use their tail in various kinds of signaling and tail curling is one that we have been observing but don’t quite know a lot about yet! Has anyone else observed this or have any ideas about tail curling behaviour?