Anolis hendersoni in the Dominican Republic

Here’s a close up of the Anolis hendersoni I found sleeping one fateful night inside the Dominican Republic.

Anolis hendersoni - male

Prior to finding this species, I had spent the evening looking for Sphaerodactylus armstrongi and S. streptophorus on the northern slopes of the Sierra de Bahoruco NW of Puerto Escondido. Upon entering a patch of closed-canopy, broad-leafed forest with a dense, bushy understory, I remarked to myself, “I bet there will be Anolis bahorucoensis here.” Anolis bahorucoensis is a bush anole that is common across the Sierra de Bahoruco, and often found alongside S. armstrongi. I was not expecting to see A. hendersoni – another dolichocephalic bush dwelling species that is closely related to A. bahorucoensis – because it is generally considered a Haitian endemic whose range doesn’t cross the border into the Dominican Republic. When the sun set and I switched over to night hunting, I was happy to find out my intuition was, for once in my life, a close approximation of reality.