I took a break for my birthday, and then it was a holiday, then finals, then I had to travel, but now I’m back and it’s almost a holiday again. Before another holiday I did wanna share a short anole post! I’ve also missed doing this and I’ve been thinking about what anole to do since I got to see the anole specimens at the London Natural History Museum.
I picked a festive little Cuban anole, Anolis allogus, also called the Spanish Flag anole or Bueycito anole (after a village where it can be found).
The males of this trunk-ground anole species have an SVL of ~60 mm, while females are about ~49 mm. Its distribution is sporadic but it’s found mostly in the east of Cuba. They follow the typical trunk-ground anole coloration of light or dark grey-brown tones, with striping on their tails, and marbling on their sides. Male Bueycito anoles have pale yellow dewlaps with either a center dot or lateral center stripes of bright red/red-orange. Females have smaller pale yellow dewlaps.
I almost missed that it’s been a year of #DidYouAnole!! Thank you for sticking with me and learning about these lizards!
For this super belated one year anniversary, I have both an anole and a request.
First, the anole!
Anolis rubribarbus is a trunk-ground anole from Cuba. Specifically the eastern half of the Holguín province, around the town of Sagua de Tánamo from whence it gets one of its common names. The Sagua de Tánamo anole lives in the rainforest and possibly on rocky montane habitat in its range.
It’s listed as endangered due to its very limited range.
Also known as the Cuban tiger anole, their dewlaps are yellow with orange stripes and they are tan to olive with darker vertical stripes, like a… you know… tiger.
Now for my request! I couldn’t find a lot about this anole’s ecology or natural history, so if you have worked on this species or know someone who does, please let me know!
In the meantime, here is a year in anoles from my Twitter, and from the blog!
Thank you! It means a lot to get to share these lizards with you.
All anoles are amazing and unique, but some just go above and beyond others.
Anolis vermiculatus (previously seen here), the Cuban aquatic or stream anole, is a semi-aquatic anole endemic to Cuba and one of two anoles that completely lacks a dewlap (the other being Anolis bartschi).
The males can have an SVL of up to 123mm making them a large anole, and the females are smaller at 83mm. They live near streams in dense vegetation and eat (in addition to insects) plant matter, small fish, frogs, crayfish and freshwater shrimp. Like another anole, Anolis pulchellus, the Cuban aquatic anole is able to run across the surface of water to escape predators, aided by the hydrophobic skin that anoles have. Cuban stream anoles are incredibly skittish so in addition to running across the water, they may just jump into it when disturbed or threatened, staying submerged for long periods of time.
I’m really into these tiny anoles now, and I promise we will venture next week, but for right now. I would like to talk about Anolis alutaceus.
Anolis alutaceus, also known as the Blue-eyed grass-bush anole or Monte Verde anole, is a forest-dwelling Cuban anole that can also be found on Isla de Juventud. It is one of the anoles in the alutaceus series of 14 closely related Cuban grass-bush anoles.
They have a sizable pale yellow dewlap, and tan brown bodies with a lateral striping running from shoulder to vent, as well as diamond patterning on their backs. Monte Verde anoles have a SVL of around 37.5mm. They can be found close to the ground on the skinny surfaces their body plans are suited for, and like many of the other anoles in their ecomorph, they move mostly by jumping.
Cities are hot. Because of the urban heat island effect, urban environments tend to be significantly warmer than nearby non-urban environments. For ectothermic organisms, like lizards and insects, elevated urban temperatures create thermally stressful conditions. It might be unsurprising then that researchers have documented an increase in thermal tolerance in urban animals (e.g., City Ants Adapt to Hotter Environment). These studies point to the ability to cope with elevated urban temperatures as a critical aspect of persisting in urban environments.
Although there is evidence that the urban environment shapes adaptive thermal tolerance in Anolis lizards at the genomic level, it is also possible that anole species that thrive in hot urban environments have an innate ability to do so due to local adaptation in their ancestral habitat (i.e., forests). In fact, an analysis of patterns of urban tolerance across Caribbean anoles found that species that experience hotter and drier temperatures in their native ranges and those that maintain higher field body temperatures tended to be the ones that do well in urban environments (Winchell et al. 2020). And when researchers looked at genomic variation in Cuban species not found in urban areas, they identified genes associated with thermal sensitivity (Akashi et al. 2016), suggesting tolerance of different thermal environments may be encoded at the genomic level. But does this mean that some anoles are predisposed to tolerate hot urban temperatures based on the climate of their ancestral forest homes?
Kanamori et al. (2021) — “Detection of genes positively selected in Cuban Anolis lizards that naturally inhabit hot and open areas and currently thrive in urban areas” — set out to answer this question by examining the transcriptome of nine species of Cuban anoles that occupy different thermal microhabitats. Cuba is home to the largest number of anole species, with species diversifying to occupy distinct thermal and structural microhabitats. In their study, the researchers attempted to identify genomic signatures of selection in non-urban populations of species that thrive in urban environments in order to understand if there was something unique about the genetic background related to thermal tolerance in these species that enables urban colonization.
Of the nine species Kanamori and colleagues studied, three are found in naturally hot and open environments: A. allisoni, A. porcatus, and A. sagrei, representing two different branches of the Cuban anole radiation. These three species (and several of their close relatives) also thrive in urban environments both in Cuba (e.g., Havana) and in their non-native range (e.g., Miami, Florida).
Anolis porcatus, Photo by James Telford iNaturalist
Anolis allisoni, Photo by Juan Rafael Rodríguez iNaturalist
Five other species are found in cool and deeply shaded forests: A. alutaceus, A. isolepis, A. garridoi, A. allogus, and A. mestrei. The last species, A. homolechis, is common in the shaded areas of forest margins.
Anolis alutaceus, Photo by Yasel U. Alfonso iNaturalist
Anolis homolechis, Photo by Alex Alfil iNaturalist
Anolis isolepis, Photo by Yasel U. Alfonso iNaturalist
Kanamori and colleagues examined a total of 5,962 genes and found genomic signatures of selection in 21 genes in the two main branches of species that contain urbanophilic species (A. porcatus & A. allisoni, and A. sagrei), but did not identify selection in the same genes across the two lineages. In other words, these closely related species have found unique genomic pathways to deal with the hot and dry forest environments in which they thrive. This finding suggests that the predisposition to tolerate hot urban environments is determined by different genes in different anole species, and raises the possibility that further local adaptation to urban thermal environments may also be lineage specific.
When the researchers looked at the functional associations of the genes under selection in each species, they found that they were related to stress responses, epidermal tolerance to desiccation, and cardiac function. All three of these biological functions are implicated in maintaining appropriate acclimation responses to thermal stress in anoles. These findings implicate ancestral selection on stress responses, perhaps in response to thermal or ultraviolet radiation, as potential factors influencing tolerance of anoles in urban environments. Further exploring the importance of these functions will shed light on their role in the initial tolerance of urban environments upon urban colonization and adaptive modification as urban lineages persist.
Welcome back. I lost a family member and took a break, but I’m back now and thank you for coming back.
I picked the Cuban Knight Anole for today because there’s just so much anole to love.
Anolis equestris are crown-giant anoles and the largest known species of anole with an SVL of 10-20 cm in males and 9-17 cm in females. Their tails can be about twice their body length. They are territorial and will gape and display at perceived threats, while raising its body.
Cuban Knight anoles are native to Cuba, but have since been introduced to places like Turks and Caicos, Florida, Hawaii and the Canary Islands.
These large anoles eat pretty much whatever they want to, including the usual anole fare like insects, nectar, other smaller lizards, and fruit and plant matter. They are actually able to pass on viable seeds! Cuban Knights have also been seen eating other animals that are smaller than themselves, like birds, scorpions, and frogs.
Photo by Paul Richards
Both males and females have dewlaps, which for this species have no pattern and are pale pink. There are 11 subspecies of the Cuban Knight anole, includingA. equestris poitor, also called the Blue Beauty for its blue colouring that becomes more prominent and overt in its dark phase. These are only found in Cayo Santa María, an island off Cuba’s north central coast.
Anolis lucius, or the Slender Cliff anole, is another endemic Cuban anole. It can be found close to urban areas and in similar karstic habitats to the Western Cliff anole. They also can be found inside caves where they also lay their eggs, sticking them to the walls (Hardy, 1957). They have a cyclical reproductive cycle, mating and laying their eggs in the wet season, after egg production occurs in the dry season.
Slender Cliff anoles have a really pretty design with almost circular striping at the top of their heads and striping down their sides. They have a translucent lower eyelid, the purpose of which is unknown. Possibly to help filter out light when they initially emerge from the caves? Is anyone studying these anoles right now? Can you email me? For science??
Photo by Shea Lambert
In the meantime, here’s a paper about winter aggregation. Socially distant huddles! Cute!
I know this year has been off to… a start.
A lot has happened, and while someone else would avoid “getting political” in their scicomm, I think we should acknowledge that science is political. Voting was only one step to making America better, and that was threatened by people who want to continue to perpetuate racism and white supremacy. We all saw what happened. There’s no way that anyone calling the people who stormed a government building during an election process are patriots. There’s so much work to do, more than reading a book or following more Black scientists on social media. While those are good, being anti-racist and standing up against people who would seek to uphold these structures are continuous processes. I hope this new year brings you renewed resolve to be allies.
Now. Here’s to a good anole to start the year with.
Anolis bartschi, also known as the Western Cliff anole and West Cuban anole, is beautiful and peculiar.
Found in the Pinar del Rio, the westernmost province of Cuba, this anole lives on karstic (a type of limestone topography) hills, equipped with long hindlimbs and toes that help it get around the terrain. It can be found on the rock faces, cliffs, rock piles and in crevices.
It is one of two (known) anoles that completely lack a dewlap, but it does inflate its throat as a display, along with the usual anole head bobs. They are also one of the few species with communal nests, with the females laying their eggs in crevices on the sides and walls of caves. Female Western Cliff anoles can get up to 6.4 cm long (SVL) and the males about 7.5cm. They are also one of the few anoles with blue colouring.
Checking another box for uncommon anole behaviour, Western Cliff anoles squeak (Rodríguez Schettino et al.,1999)! And they may hang from their forelimbs, and walk with their toes raised. An individual may eat smaller anoles than themselves.
Western Cliff anoles are considered at a low extinction risk.
Like many anoles, we are still learning about more this anole and I can’t wait to find out more.
I hope you’ve been having a great holiday and that 2021 will be a great year for you. And what better way to end the year than with an anole?
Anolis homolechis, the Cuban White-fanned or Habana anole, is a trunk-ground anole native to Cuba. It is very similar in appearance to the Brown anole (Anolis sagrei), but, as the name suggests, has a stark white dewlap that may have light grey large stripes.
White-fanned anoles are sympatric with Brown anoles; however they partition by temperature, with Brown anoles preferring hotter areas. White-fanned anoles can be found in the shade and can occur at higher elevations than Brown anoles as well (Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, 2009).
Female Habana anoles have a very small dewlap, almost identical to the males, but with smaller, darker striping.
Since we had some questions about tail curling in Brown Anoles last week, I figured we should just talk about them today!
Anolis sagrei, or the Brown Anole or Bahaman Anole, is a trunk-ground anole whose range originally included islands like the Bahamas, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands. Brown Anoles are great stowaways and have now made it to the mainland US, other Caribbean islands and Pacific islands like Hawaii.
Brown Anoles can get up to 8.5 inches long (including their tail), and have a snout-to-vent length of about 55-60mm. They are, as their name suggests, often brown, but may also be grey. Despite the drab colouring, these anoles have a lot of variation in their patterns between individuals, with some almost looking plain and others appearing very striking with an array of spots, striping and marbling. Brown anole’s dewlaps are typically red-orange with a yellow border, but there are some who have splotches of yellow.
Since the introduction of another brown coloured anole, Anolis cristatellus (the Crested Anole), the two may be confused, but Brown anoles can be differentiated from them by the dewlap colouring (Crested anoles have opposite dewlap colours, typically yellow with a usually large border of orange), and if you can get close enough, by the presence or absence of light coloured ring around the eye or front limb stripe. Brown anoles don’t have this ring, but instead have dark eye bars (I like to think of it as winged eyeliner, that’s just how it registers the fastest in my mind). They also don’t have a light stripe above their front limb. Female Crested anoles have only a cream-coloured stripe down their backs that Brown anole females might have between diamond or bar patterning.
As we all may know ,they’re also very feisty anoles, going after questionable prey and prey larger than themselves. They are also one of several anoles that eat other anoles (and other lizards)!
I also get a lot of questions on Brown and Green anole interactions, typically about why Brown anoles are killing off Green anoles and here’s some posts to help answer that!
![Anolis alutaceus [image] | EurekAlert! Science News](https://i0.wp.com/www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/web/23297_web.jpg?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1)
