Apparently they can, as they graph above indicates: Captive brown anoles tilt their heads more when the call of a kestrel or hawk is played compared to their response to calls from a variety of more benign feathers. These results come from a study on 32 captive brown anoles conducted by Cantwell and Forrest and published recently in the Journal of Herpetology. We’ve had a bit of discussion on the hearing ability of anoles–we tend to focus on anole visual capability, but its clear that they can hear and thus the role of auditory capabilities in the lives of anoles deserves more study (as do their vocalizations).
Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.
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Ambika Kamath
Has anyone performed similar experiments with visual cues e.g. the silhouette of a raptor vs. a songbird flying overhead?
K.ra
Or perhaps the silhouette of a raptor shown at the same time that a recording of a songbird is played, or vice versa.
Also is it possible that a raptors call would be louder and more piercing than a songbirds and thus more frightening to the lizard ?