Photo by Rachel Easton.

Periodically, we here at Anole Annals get reports of mating between green and brown anoles. Usually, it turns out to be a case of misidentification–often the “brown” anole is really a green anole in brown color phase, but sometimes it actually does happen. The most recent report comes from reader Rachel Easton, who tells the story of the picture above: “I’ve had them for a few weeks but they lived together at the pet store for months before I had them.  They are in a 20 gallon in my greenhouse. This is the first time I’ve witnessed the mating behavior. I moved their tank to another location and about 3 minutes later they were mating. I occasionally see them displaying their throats at one another but I assumed it was a territorial dispute over the best basking spot.”

Jonathan Losos
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