Jonathan Losos

Anole Photo Contest: Still Time To Enter

On October 21, 2013

Last year’s winner, Anolis allisoni by Steven De Decker and Tess Driessens

We’ve gotten a fabulous set of entries already, but rumor has is that there still might be room for an even better one. So get your photos entered before the end-of-the-month deadline. And don’t forget the grand prize: a spiffy Anolis watch of the ecomorph of your choice! Enter today!

The rules: please submit photos (as many as you’d like) as attachments to anoleannals@gmail.com. To ensure that submissions with large attachments arrive, it’s a good idea to send an accompanying e-mail without any attachments that seeks confirmation of the photo’s receipt. Photos must be at least 150 dpi and print to a size of 11 x 17 inches. If you do not have experience resizing and color-correcting your images, the simplest thing to do is to submit the raw image files produced by your digital camera (or, for the luddites, a high quality digital scan of a printed image). If you elect to alter your own images, don’t forget that its always better to resize than to resample. Images with watermarks or other digital alterations that extend beyond color correction, sharpening and other basic editing will not be accepted. We are not going to deal with formal copyright law and ask only your permission to use your image for the calendar and related content on Anole Annals. We, in turn, agree that your images will never be used without attribution and that we will not profit financially from their use (nobody is going to make any money from the sale of these calendars because they’ll be available directly from the vendor).

Please provide a short description of the photo that includes: (1) the species name, (2) the location where the photo was taken, and (3) any other relevant information. Twelve winning photos will be selected by readers of Anole Annals from a set of 28 finalists chosen by the editors of Anole Annals. The grand prize winning and runner-up photos will be chosen by a panel of anole photography experts. Deadline for submission is November 1, 2013.

Biodiversity Of The Lesser Antilles Conference Volume

By Jonathan Losos

On October 19, 2013

In New Research

A conference on the fauna and flora of the “Petite Antilles” was held in Martinique in 2010 and the resulting conference volume has just appeared and is downloadable. The papers are many and varied, covering all manner of organism and topics spanning a wide range of topics. I’d give a full report on the papers, but…most are in French. Of most interest to our audience is a paper from Roger Thorpe’s reporting further studies on contact zones between divergent A. roquet lineages on Martinique (we previously discussed what was formerly their most recent study). In addition, the Bobs Powell and Henderson, along with Gad Perry and others, have a paper on introduced species of the Lesser Ants, Michel Breuil has one on sphaeros, and there are a number of others of interest. The full Table of Contents is below.

Egg-Laying Biology Of The Green Anole

By Jonathan Losos

On October 18, 2013

In New Research

The egg-laying biology of anoles is surprisingly little studied. Where do they lay their eggs? How often? Inquiring minds needs to know. And now a team of Japanese scientists led by Mitsuhido Toda has taken a small step to answer these questions.

Working with green anoles introduced to islands near Japan, the researchers brought ten females into the lab, amply fed and watered them, and saw where and how often they laid eggs. The lizards were brought into the lab in April and the first egg was laid in late May. Egg production increased until a peak in mid-August and ended in late October. Over the course of the season, females laid an average of 13.7 eggs. At the peak in August, females were averaging almost an egg a week.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the study was the cage in which the females were kept, which had a variety of available sites, including a potted fern and pots with wet and dry soil all at ground level, and another set of pots at a meter. Females strongly preferred the low-down pots to the high ones, and the pots with the ferns to those without. Among eggs laid in fern-less pots, all were in the wet soil and none in the dry soil. In the pots with ferns, eggs were often laid in the cup-shaped part of the plant in the center of the pot or between the eggs; eggs laid in the soil were from 0-50 mm below the surface, averaging 17 mm deep.

This research is part of a greater effort to learn the natural history of the green anole so as to eradicate it from the Japanese islands, where it is apparently having a devastating effect on the endemic insect fauna [1,2]. The researchers suggest that eradication efforts may be most useful in April, before the egg-laying season begins, and also suggest the development of artificial egg-laying sites, from which eggs can be harvested before they hatch.

R.I.P. Chad Watkins

By Jonathan Losos

On October 16, 2013

In All Posts

Anole Annals is very sorry to learn of the passing of AA contributor Chad Watkins. Chad, a graduate student at the University of Texas-Arlington , was killed in a car crash October 8th in Dallas. Chad’s research was on the occurrence of transposable elements in Hox genes in Anolis carolinensis. We reported on his fascinating talk on this topic at the 2011 Evolution meetings, and Chad himself posted on some eggs that survived freezing in an incubator mishap. Rest in peace, Chad Watkins.

Name That Anole

By Jonathan Losos

On October 15, 2013

In Anole Photographs

Here’s one almost no one out there has ever seen. What is it?

Hueyfest A Great Success

By Jonathan Losos

On October 12, 2013

In All Posts

Outside of the program distributed at Hueyfest. Designed by Barry Sinervo.

Outside pages of the program distributed at Hueyfest. Designed by Barry Sinervo.

A week ago Friday, 60 people gathered at the Burke Museum in Seattle to celebrate the career of Ray Huey. And what a career it’s been: thermal ecophysiology, comparative methods development, rapid evolution in Drosophila, effects of global warming on ectotherms, and much, much more.

And we heard all about it, and then some, in the eight talks that filled the day’s proceedings. The presentations were many and varied, but all had one theme: the important role Ray has played not only in the development of important ideas in science, but in the lives of the people with whom he has interacted. Here’s a few highlights:

Paul Hertz, who has worked with Ray since they were graduate students, reflected on Ray then and now

Paul Hertz, who has worked with Ray since they were graduate students, reflected on Ray’s early days up to the present

Some of the photos of Ray in earlier days presented by Hertz

Next up was Joel Kingsolver, who provided an insightful analysis of Ray’s publishing approach.

Brown Anole At Bermuda International Airport?

By Jonathan Losos

On October 9, 2013

In Introduced Anoles

Mark Outerbridge recently posted this photo in a comment, writing: “This photo of an anole hatchling was taken (via cell phone, hence the poor quality) by a member of the public in the departure lounge at the Bermuda international airport. Could it be a brown anole?”

We’ve already reported on brownies in Bermuda, but who would have thought they were going in on commercial flights? Or maybe they’re heading home? Is this a brown anole? Could it be Anolis grahami or some other species?

Adapting Anolis: The New Film On Cuban Anoles

By Jonathan Losos

On October 8, 2013

In Anole Videos

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUv0BbQ91wo

In the last year or two, we’ve seen a number of documentaries on Cuban anoles, and here’s another, a 12-minute piece featuring A. equestris, A. vermiculatus, A. ahli (I think), A. sagrei, A. angusticeps, and others. Worth watching, just for the closing line, “There are over 300 anole species in the Caribbean, making the Anolis lizard one of the planet’s most diverse and evolutionarily significant animals.”

Anoles On Huffpo!

By Jonathan Losos

On October 7, 2013

In All Posts

The Huffington Post featured an article yesterday on our old friend [1,2,3], Anolis proboscis. In these pages, this species has been called the horned anole of Ecuador, but Huffpo, following a post two days earlier on Livescience, calls it the Pinocchio anole. You make the call.

The article is about a group of our friends at Tropical Herping finding some specimens of this little seen species. Huffpo’s title, “Pinocchio lizard rediscovered in Ecuador after being thought extinct for 50 years,” takes a few licenses, primarily because, as the article notes, the species has been seen a number of times since 2005, which was only 40 years or so after the previous sighting. Still, it’s nice to see anoles getting the attention.

And, more importantly, the article plugs the wonderful new book on the reptiles and amphibians of Mindo, written and lavishly illustrated by the Tropical Herping team. The book is available now in online format and will be for sale in hardcopy before long. Definitely worth checking out.

And late-breaking news: there’s a video as well!

Anole Photo Contest 2013

By Jonathan Losos

On October 4, 2013

In All Posts

Who wouldn’t want to win one of these?

It’s that time again! 2014 is just around the corner, which means it’s time to start planning for another year. And what better way to mark the passage of time than with an anole calendar? As we did last year, we’re going to have a photo contest to get the best possible photographs for each month (check out the winning photos from last year). So, today Anole Annals is pleased to announce the 2013 Anole Photo Contest. The goal of the contest is to identify 12 winning photos. The grand prize winner will have her/his photo featured on the front cover of the 2013 Anole Annals calendar and will receive an Anole Annals wristwatch of the ecomorph of her/his choice. The second place winner will receive a copy of the calendar and have her/his photo featured on the backcover of the calendar.

The rules: please submit photos (as many as you’d like) as attachments to anoleannals@gmail.com. To ensure that submissions with large attachments arrive, it’s a good idea to send an accompanying e-mail without any attachments that seeks confirmation of the photo’s receipt. Photos must be at least 150 dpi and print to a size of 11 x 17 inches. If you do not have experience resizing and color-correcting your images, the simplest thing to do is to submit the raw image files produced by your digital camera (or, for the luddites, a high quality digital scan of a printed image). If you elect to alter your own images, don’t forget that its always better to resize than to resample. Images with watermarks or other digital alterations that extend beyond color correction, sharpening and other basic editing will not be accepted. We are not going to deal with formal copyright law and ask only your permission to use your image for the calendar and related content on Anole Annals. We, in turn, agree that your images will never be used without attribution and that we will not profit financially from their use (nobody is going to make any money from the sale of these calendars because they’ll be available directly from the vendor).

Please provide a short description of the photo that includes: (1) the species name, (2) the location where the photo was taken, and (3) any other relevant information. Twelve winning photos will be selected by readers of Anole Annals from a set of 28 finalists chosen by the editors of Anole Annals. The grand prize winning and runner-up photos will be chosen by a panel of anole photography experts. Deadline for submission is November 1, 2013.

Author: Jonathan Losos Page 66 of 133