Parasitologist and herpetologist extraordinaire Susan Perkins is featured on the American Museum of Natural History’s website. Included are two podcasts in which she discusses fieldwork on the leopard anole, Anolis sabanus. Hear her discuss malaria, giant cockroaches, karaoke and the rigors of fieldwork on a tiny island.
Photo from Daffodil’s Photo Blog
This is the same lizard featured last week on Daffodil’s Blog eating a spider. Now it’s nomming something else, and photographer Karen Cusick doesn’t know what. Any thoughts?
Karen Cusick watched this brown anole down a tasty arachnid. Read all about it on Daffodil’s Photo Blog.
And here’s another lovely shot of the so-called festive anole from Karen’s post.
Photo by Karen Cusick
Who knew there were so many fossil geckoes? In the first review of fossil geckodom in more than three decades, Juan Daza, Aaron Bauer, and Eric Snively examine 28 fossil geckos, providing new insights into whether the specimens can be confidently attributed to taxa. Some times, they can placed into extant genera, other times, especially for the older ones, it’s hard to say for sure just where the belong.
If nothing else, the fossils are cool and sometimes quite old, the most ancient, Cretaceogecko, dating back to the early Cretaceous.
This paper was part of a special of the Anatomical Record published last year, “New Advances In Morphology and Evolution of Living and Extinct Squamates,” which was previously discussed in these pages.
Here’s the abstract:
Gekkota is often interpreted as sister to all remaining squamates, exclusive of dibamids, or as sister to Autarchoglossa. It is the only diverse lineage of primarily nocturnal lizards and includes some of the smallest amniotes. The skeleton of geckos has often been interpreted as paedomorphic and/or “primitive” but these lizards also display a wide range of structural specializations of the postcranium, including modifications associated with both scansorial locomotion and limb reduction. Although the concept of “Gekkota” has been variously applied by different authors, we here apply a rigorous apomorphy based definition, recent advances in gekkotan morphology and phylogenetics, and diverse comparative material to provide a comprehensive assessment of 28 known pre-Quaternary geckos, updating the last such review, published three decades ago. Fossils evaluated include both sedimentary fossils and amber-embedded specimens. Known Cretaceous geckos are exclusively Asian and exhibit character combinations not seen in any living forms. Cenozoic gekkotans derive from sites around the world, although Europe is especially well represented. Paleogene geckos are largely known from disarticulated remains and show similarities to Sphaerodactylidae and Diplodactylidae, although resemblances may be plesiomorphic in some cases. Many Neogene gekkotans are referable to living families or even genera, but their geographic occurrences are often extralimital to those of modern groups, as is consistent with paleoclimatic conditions. The phylogenetic placement of fossil gekkotans has important repercussions for timetree calibration, but at present only a small number of fossils can be confidently assigned to even family level groupings, limiting their utility in this regard.
In a recent post, we discussed the description of two new Costa Rican anoles, but didn’t draw attention to the fact that all members of the A. pachypus species complex exhibit dewlap dichromatism, with the dewlaps of males and females differing within a species. Shown here are differences in A. tropidolepis (top) and A. pachypus (bottom). The images on the right are females and the left and center are males.
In a previous post, we discussed this phenomenon, but its explanation still escapes us. Interestingly, it occurs almost exclusively in mainland anoles.
Joe Martinez of the Museum of Comparative Zoology writes in: “I was recently contacted by Samantha Grantham, the collections manager of the Wenham Museum in Wenham Massachusetts, who would appreciate learning the identification of a lizard skeleton that resides in the Coffin Room of their Addams Family dollhouse. The dollhouse was constructed locally, presumably with artifacts that were readily available.
It appears to be an anole and Anolis carolinensis would have been available through the pet trade at that time. Anolis sagrei may have begun showing up in the pet trade as well by then. Can anyone give an authoritative identification?”
And want to learn more about the Addams Family Dollhouse? There’s a whole blog devoted to it!
McCranie and Köhler have just published an authoritative account of the 39 species of Honduran anoles. Rich in detail and thorough in coverage, this volume will be of interest to anyone interested in neotropical herpetology.
Harvard University Press’s description says it all: Caribbean members of this group have been intensively studied and have become a model system for the study of ecology, evolution, and biogeography, but knowledge of the anoles of Central and South America has lagged behind. In this landmark volume, veteran herpetologists James R. McCranie and Gunther Köhler take a step toward rectifying this shortcoming by providing a detailed account of the rich anole fauna of Honduras. Generously illustrated with 157 photos and drawings, The Anoles of Honduras includes information on the evolutionary relationships, natural history, distribution, and conservation of all 39 Honduran anole species. The work is the result of decades of study both in the field and in museums and is the first synthetic discussion of the complete anole fauna of any Central or South American country. Each species is described in great detail with locality maps. Bilingual (English and Spanish), extensively illustrated identification keys are also included.
Distribution maps are provided for all species.
Like all publications of the Bulletin of the MCZ and Breviora, the book is freely available as a pdf on the journal’s website. But a pdf just doesn’t look right on a bookshelf, not to mention getting soggy in the field. For those who really want to get the most out of this volume, why not consider purchasing it from Harvard University Press for only $24.95 (not bad for a 280 page volume jam-packed with color photos!)? And it’s even cheaper on Amazon (currently $20.48).
On her own blog, Ambika Kamath explains that field work is often about surprises and unexpected mysteries. Check out A Macabre Start to My Time in Florida.
Photo by Thadaigh Baggallay
Thadaigh Baggallay writes: “I took this picture in Kaieteur National Park, Guyana. Anolis chrysolepis perhaps?”
Looks to me like whichever chrysolepis-type anole occurs in Guyana. Exactly a year ago today, we had a post on a new field guide to Guyanan herps by Cole et al. which probably would help. According to that guide, I believe the species would be A. planiceps. Any thoughts any one?
Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies is described as a nomadic folk band, and they’re based out of Dublin, Ireland and Bilbao, in the Basque Country of Spain. Maybe it’s the cold rainy climes of both those places that inspired these musicians to create a wistful song about a tropical lizard basking on a palm tree. It’s a catchy tune, so check it out.
Here are some of the lyrics from the song:
“When Sun come out / Out come the lizard / Lazing around / And a’flicking her tail/ When Sun go home / Home go the lizard / Till the Sun come out again.”
“See the way she slide / My, what a lizard! / She got so many beautiful scales / She the way she shine.”
“Oh she’s catching flies / That greedy lizard / Her long sticky tongue / Doesn’t make any sound / She gets pomegranate / Out of the cupboard / That’s the way to wash them down.”
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