Firstly, let me start by offering my sincere apologies for the standard of photography you are about to view. As you AA readers have become accustomed to Jonathan’s flowing prose, and other members’ excellent use of modern photographic equipment, I must warn you not to expect either here!
As has been mentioned previously, the IBS Conference was a tremendous success, and firstly huge congratulations must be passed on to (a potential anologist in the making?) Ken Feeley for all the hard work and effort. The lack of talks concerning arguably one of the world’s most studied vertebrate biogeographic systems did not detract from the high levels of anole hunting that ensued over the course of the conference!
After a wonderful afternoon visiting Miami’s most bizarre lizard community, the following day provided an opportunity for conversations to be followed up from the previous night’s conference dinner (as some graduate students’ memories may have appeared a little hazy on Saturday morning). Much of the day was spent wandering around FIU’s Biscayne Bay Campus eagerly trying to find the dozen knight anoles that were promised to us the previous night by resident expert, and thoroughly nice guy, Sean Giery.
Sean has spent the past 3 years observing the A. equestris community on this campus, and has assured me that he will bless AA readers with a synopsis of his eagerly awaited dietary analysis paper in the near future. The day started brightly, with two juveniles being found in close proximity to each other; however with just he and I as the only observers, it was tough to include these individuals in the promised dozen.
Juvenile knight anole found on a horizontal branch ~2m high. Photo by JStroud
At the start of lunch, and confronting the midday heat with the enthusiasm of schoolboys on a day trip, we regrouped with some extra eyes and headed back out to continue on our quest. Although A. sagrei, A. carolinensis and A. distichus were abundant, these were still not the target species. A loud thump behind us saw us all swivel in synchrony, like a troop of sunburnt and slightly dehydrated Michael Flatley fanatics, to be confronted by a rather startled green iguana that had just plummeted 10 feet after submissively losing a dispute to a larger male. The campus had previously been awash with a healthy population of green iguanas; however the big freeze of 2009 reduced this significantly so that the only survivors were those small enough to retreat underground.
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