Matt R. Whiles, Chair and Professor in the Soil and Water Sciences Department at the University of Florida provides these details:

Specimen was not captured, just photographed by my wife Lindsay Hsieh, who is familiar with Anolis and recognized that it was different looking.  Observed in Alachua county FL, west of Gainesville in a horse barn facility – coordinates: 29^O 41’08”N 82^O 30’18”W;  date was November 10 2020.  A. carolinensis are common on the barn, but none we’ve seen look like this.  The owners of the facility routinely haul horses back and forth from Gainesville to south Florida, so could be a transplant.”

He then asks: “I’ve seen thousands of A. carolinensis, and never one like this.  Do you think this is just a color/pattern display, or would this individual always look like this?  We are keeping an eye out for it again and will try to collect it if you want the specimen.”

Thoughts, anyone (including interest in the specimen should it be seen again)? My guess is that these are not  permanent markings; the block spot on the head and the hint of an erected nuchal (neck) crest suggests a stress response; perhaps the lizard had just been fighting. Indeed, Dr. Whiles clarified in a subsequent email: “I’ve certainly seen the black spot form on stressed individuals, but never the full patterning.  To add to your hypothesis, my wife indicated it was interacting with another Anolis when she saw it (you can actually see the tail of the other individual in the pic).”

Back in 2013, AA featured a number of posts discussing whether and how often bats eat anoles. The discussion ended with a report of a paper documenting extensive anole hunting by the big-eared bat in Panama (see photo above). That paper described how the bats captured their prey: “M. microtis hunts on the wing, checking leaf by leaf in the forest while hovering up and down the understory vegetation.”

Now, a new study has used DNA metabarcoding of fecal samples from the frog-eating bat, Trachops cirrhosus, and has discovered that the bat needs a new common name: the frog-and-lizard-eating bat. That’s right: although DNA from a variety of frog genera was found in the bat poop, the second most common taxon (inhabiting 22% of the turds) after Pristimantis frogs was anoles!

The study did some other clever things as well in an attempt to figure out how the bats found their prey. Here’s what they say in the discussion:

“We found DNA from Anolis lizards in almost a quarter of our bat samples, but bats showed a fairly low response to the rustling sounds of anoles moving through leaf-litter. A previous anecdotal report from Honduras described finding a dead anole in the mistnet pocket with a female T. cirrhosus (Valdez and LaVal 1971). Anoles do make alarm sounds, but do not call, therefore we anticipate that the rustling sounds made by anoles moving through leaf-litter is the most obvious cue they present to T. cirrhosus. We had hypothesized that we would find greater responses to anole rustling sounds in dry season conditions (lizards moving through dry leaves) than wet because movement through dry leaves produces louder, more conspicuous rustling sounds. While we did find anoles in the diet of more T. cirrhosus in the dry season than in the wet season, and we did find higher response to the sounds of anoles moving through dry versus wet leaf litter, these differences were not significant. Why bats did not show more response in general to anole rustles is unclear. One possibility is that since the speaker was in a fixed location, the rustling sound does not move in space as a real moving animal would. Additionally, rustles are relatively low amplitude compared to the mating calls we presented to the bats, which could account for the lower responses. Also, anoles are diurnal, therefore we might not predict them to be moving around at night, and rustling sounds could be indicative of many different potential prey, some more palatable than others. Bats may thus be locating anole prey by some other mechanism than rustling sounds, and one bat did attack a silent, motionless plastic anole model, indicating that T. cirrhosus may be able to locate sleeping lizards using echolocation alone. Anoles are diurnal, so unless one was scared off of its perch, they are unlikely to be moving through the leaf litter at night.”

And just because it’s so cool, I have to add the beginning of the next paragraph:

“Diet samples indicated some predation events that appear to be rare, including predation on the hummingbird F. mellivora, and on the bats Glossophaga soricina, C. perspicillata, and Micronycteris microtis.“

Festive anole in the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore

We’ve reported previously on the introduction of festive anoles (a.k.a., brown anoles) to Singapore. Now, a new report reveals that they are, indeed, spreading far and wide in the island state. How long before they make it to Malaysia (if not already)?

From Hongxia and Zhiyuan. 2020

Photos by James Lindros

After my recent post on another observation of a bright orange–some might call it red–brown anole, Annals reader Nathan writes: “I saw the post of the Orange sagrei from Sarasota on Anolis Annals. My friend James Lindros has been breeding an Orange/Red Line in captivity, and I asked if it was ok to forward this photo. James is a true expert on keeping and breeding Anolis and lives in West Palm Beach, FL.” James gave permission to use the photos and added that “they’re second generation captive bred from full red parents.” Spectacular!

A brown anole from Sarasota. Photo by Rick Greenspun.

A brown anole from Sarasota. Photo by Rick Greenspun.

One of the most popular topics on Anole Annals are posts (such as this one) on orange- or even red-colored brown anoles. We regularly get comments on old posts on this topic, as well as people reporting new sightings. The most recent is shown above, sent to us by Rick Greenspun from Sarasota, who says this is the first such anole seen there in the 47 years he has lived there.

This post is reprinted from the pages of Chipojo Lab.

 

Lagartijos más listos

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 ~ ALEPHROCCO

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Are lizards smarter than we give them credit for? Check out Manuel & Levi’s feature in the magazine Ciencia about foraging and problem solving in Anolis sagrei! The study was designed and conducted entirely in the lizards’ natural environment— in aims of understanding lizard behavior in an ecologically-relevant context. In the field of animal cognition, the majority of experiments are done in the lab, and field-based work is comparatively rare. We are in great need of more studies out in nature.

 

The ace photographic herpetologists at Tropical Herping are at it again! After publishing several beautiful and extremely useful guides–The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo and Reptiles of Galápagos–they’re now taking on the entire herpetofauna of Ecuador. If you have any doubts about their photographic chops, check out this page on Ecuadorian anoles.

And you can help make this book a reality! I’ve already done my part by sponsoring a species, but you have to guess which one.

Now you can play a major role in the publication of the 🐍 Reptiles of Ecuador 🇪🇨 book. Choose one of Ecuador’s 483 species of reptiles and your name will be displayed as its official protector or guardian in the species’ online data sheet. Your donation will help fund the last four remaining expeditions needed to find the most elusive reptiles in the country as well as cover the majority of the editing and printing costs. Every little donation helps. Click here to find out more about how can you adopt a reptile.

We’ve previously had posts about green anoles, Anolis carolinensis, introduced to the Ogasawara Islands, and the efforts to eradicate them. Now a report has implicated the anoles in the possible extinction of a butterfly species. Here’s an article from the japan times:

Four-year-old Dany Leffler noticed the goings-on in his backyard in Houston just minutes from downtown.

Down the hatch!