Photo by Alan Franck, iNaturalist
Hello again! Thank you so much for coming back. I know the post times have been a little bit off, but I’ve been working on some things and hopefully will be able to share one of those soon.
Anyway! I decided to pick another crown-giant for today and it is Anolis garmani, the Jamaican Giant anole. This anole is native to Jamaica, but has been recently introduced to the Cayman Islands and, (say it with me) Florida. Male Jamaican Giant anoles have an SVL of 131 mm, usually closer to 100 mm and females, 80 mm.
Photo by Tom McLellan
They are bright green with yellow dewlaps, and males have a dorsal crest of pointed scales. Unlike other crown-giant anoles, the Jamaican Giant anole has a proportional head size and shape to its body.
Photo by J. Burke Korol, iNaturalist
Smaller males are allowed to share and occupy the territory of larger male Jamaican Giant anoles. The larger males may even mate with the smaller ones, but once they grow over ~104 mm, they have to find their own tree. Mating, from beginning to end, takes about 25 minutes (Trivers 1976).
...And also like every other anole. Every week. #DidYouAnole?
- #DidYouAnole – Anolis allogus - December 24, 2021
- #DidYouAnole – Anolis gundlachi - November 12, 2021
- #DidYouAnole – Anolis phyllorhinus - November 5, 2021
Rick Wallach
Beautiful lizards. I see them in Pinecrest Park all the time, and at Fairchild Gardens, but they don’t seem to have made it over to the west side of US1 in my area. I’m looking forward to the day when they show up.
Chelsea, do you know if they cannibalize smaller species, like sagrei or carolinensis?
Jesus Reina Carvajal
They are undoubtedly very cute!
You wrote, and I quote: “…is native to Jamaica, but has been recently introduced to the Cayman Islands and, (say it with me) Florida.”
There is one aspect I notice time after time – the USA and in this concrete case the state of Florida are obsessed with foreign species that are introduced into the country.
I would rise these questions:
1. Why?
2. By whom?
Is there in the minds of US citizens the idea of “take over here everything we see abroad”?
In such a case who and why is complaining about, for example, the Burmese pythons in Florida?
If you want corn, plant corn.
Rick Wallach
We’re complaining about the Burmese python because it is a legitimate environmental catastrophe. It has decimated the south Floridian populations of small to medium fur bearers and waterbirds. And perhaps even worse from a personal perspective, it is preying at will upon our pet dogs and cats; larger specimens when dissected often have collars and tags in their bellies, as well as not yet fully digested carcasses. I disagree that there’s any desire to “take over” other species. Because we’re subtropical, species which would die overwinter almost anywhere else thrive and multiply down here. and there’s not really much “obsession” with species which have little impact. No one is complaining about the various species of small Asian geckos, or about Anolis sagrei except maybe Anolis carolinensis.