While hunting sagrei for fun this evening with my 3-year-old, we spotted a large male Anolis sagrei eating what I think is a mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris). This happened at 7:18 pm in the presence of minimal artificial light from lamps (albeit strong artificial light from my headlamp). Plenty of sagrei were already asleep on leaves. Surprising to find a diurnal lizard preying on a nocturnal/metaturnal gecko.
Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University.
Latest posts by Robert Pringle (see all)
- Naturalized Lizards Collide on Kauai: Nocturnal Brown Anole-on-Gecko Predation - December 30, 2022
- Mystery Growth on Anolis smaragdinus - January 18, 2014
Dorothy Patent
I’m living on Kaua’i now and Rob, if you’re visiting here now let me know and we can go anole hunting together! Email me at doropatent@gmail.com. I saw a ‘big’ A. sagre trying to swallow another of his own kind that wasn’t that much smaller; I have a photo ‘somewhere!’
Jon Richfield
Wow! Two instances of serious carnivory on vertebrates and even cannibalism! Unusual for small lizards I should think. Even among most Varanids it would not exactly be routine. I don’t know Anolids worth a cent; are many of them so aggressively voracious? They look so gracile and inoffensive.
Thanks for the report.