Photo by Jake Scott, iNaturalist

Hello again!

Hope you all are doing great. I just finished my finals and two applications to PhD programs (so far) so fingers crossed for me???

I wanna talk about another (mostly) brown-coloured anole today since I feel like there’s not enough appreciation for them.

Anolis distichus, the Bark Anole, is a trunk anole with about 16 subspecies, that ranges in colour from brown to grey to green. Their dewlaps also vary in colour and pattern with their population. Males and females look the same, but in this species only males have a dewlap.

Found in Haiti, Dominican Republic, central Bahamas and, of course, Florida, these anoles can be found in range of habitats. Bark anoles are kind of on the small side at about 127mm in length.

My favourite thing about the Bark Anole is the patterning that gives it its name. The striping mimics the roughness and shapes found in tree bark, making it kind of invisible sometimes. Quite an example of perfect camouflage.

Photo by alyssa_marker16, iNaturalist
Photo by alyssa_marker16, iNaturalist

There’s been a lot of research on the anole, particularly looking into its subspecies and if any of them are their own species. Currently, this doesn’t seem to be the case quite yet.

Maybe. There’s a lot of conversation about just how much variation there is or isn’t with this species.


Photo by djhiker, iNaturalist

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