Author: Wendy Frith

A clip of a much longer video:

Two anoles, the ubiquitous Jamaican (Graham’s, Anolis grahami), which adorns every wall in Bermuda, and the seldom seen Barbados (A. extremus), just an occasional shadow in the shade, somehow finding themselves on the desirable territory of my bedroom window. They never came to blows, but the latter was definitely the winner, the Jamaican eventually retreating with his tail between his legs (metaphorically) after 8 minutes of posturing.

For more on the introduced anoles of Bermuda, see previous AA posts (here and here).

Photo by Wendy Frith

I live in Bermuda.

Many years ago, my daughter and I witnessed a large male Graham’s anole devour a small female, same species. We were horrified as we had watched these particular individuals so often we’d named them…the male was Pat Rafter as he spent much of his time up by the porch ceiling light catching bugs there; the victim was Porsche, because she was always on the porch wall railing. 

One day, I heard a scream from the porch…not from the lizard, but from my daughter: “Pat is eating Porsche!” and I arrived in time to see him sitting in her favorite spot with her back-half still protruding from his mouth. After the final gulp, he sat basking in the sun for a long time, then waddled off leaving an extra-long turd behind. My daughter and I went over and addressed it, with many apologies. We hadn’t known he was not just merely blue (and turquoise and purple) but was a reptilian Bluebeard…in fact, even worse: a Cannibal Bluebeard!

On the other side of the house there was a male I named Brown (because a friend of mine had a brown dog he’d named Purple). I taught him to accept food from my finger, and to come to the bathroom window when I whistled Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G. He’s the one pictured at the top and bottom of this post.

Drawing by Wendy Frith.