Anolis ricordii. Photo by Miguel Landestoy.
If a juvenile anole has a dewlap since birth, there must be a reason for it, but what is it? Juvenile hispaniolan crown giants do have them and here is a video of one using it. This Anolis ricordii was only 52.10 mm in SVL and was showing his stuff while a colleague was taking photos of it. We placed it in the tree and left it for about 10 minutes without disturbing it, after which it started dewlapping and bobbing the head. At one point, the dewlap was fully extended, but by the time I got my “pocket” camera ready, this was all it gave.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZLAvF84Ob4
Later on, another individual, which was somewhat smaller, was found on the ground on a rainy day. There must be intraspecific spatial niche partitioning, when your parents are higher up and could eat you, it must be safer to stay away. Would a dewlap also be useful mainly for “pushing” away potential competitors/predators, as A. cybotes?
Skip (James) Lazell
Surely it is competition, as you suggest. It is a “little” ricordii, but has to compete with full-size cybotes before it grows big enough to climb up and take on its parents.
Martha Muñoz
You might find it interesting to know that the dewlap is likely comparatively bigger in younger crown-giants than in older ones. At SICB 2012 Bieke Vanhooydonck gave a talk about dewlap growth in the crown-giant, A. baracoae. Turns out that relative dewlap size begins to decrease when the animals are full grown, potentially due to reduced skin elasticity.
Peter Mudde
Quite a long time ago (1982) I was in Monteverde Costa Rica and saw a very small anole dewlapping its pink cherryred dewlap. The anole was about 2,5 cm bodylenght and showing off to another anole of the same size. It got lost in the vegetation, but I identified it as Anolis tropidolepis. Later I learned this species was actually quite common near Monteverde but much larger then the one I saw dewlapping. Probably a very juvenile specimen that did use it’s dewlap as well..
Miguel Landestoy
Neat info. Thanks!
Jessica Stapley
I have seen juvenile Anolis apletophallus displaying in the field and the lab. I was intrigued by this, I think competition may be quite important for these lizards. An intern (Liz Miller) working with me in Panama did some nice experiments looking at competition between juveniles. We are analysing these data now and hope to publish the results.