Category: All Posts Page 136 of 149

This lovely photo of A. capito taken by Gabe Gartner is one of the contestants in this year’s contest.

As we enter the last weekend, it’s neck-and-neck, with recent polls showing the race tightening. 500 votes are in–cast yours for the Anole Photo Contest. Voting ends at the witching hour on Halloween (October 31).

AA veterans will recall that we have a recurring interest in hurricanes, especially those that go over Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco, Bahamas, the site of a series of long-running anole experiments. Previous posts have documented how such hurricanes have prematurely terminated several experiments, and some may recall that last year, Hurricane Irene passed right over the islands. Miraculously, the hurricane hit at low tide and in just the right direction such that waves did not wash over many of the islands, and thus the experiment was not destroyed.

But this time, it doesn’t look so good. According to the latest projections, it looks like Sandy’s eye is going to pass pretty close, about 20 miles east of Marsh Harbour, at about 8 AM tomorrow morning eastern time. Barometer Bob is calling for winds up to 70 mph in the Abacos. And that’s just after high tide, and it is a particularly high high tide. Passing to the east would produce less storm surge than coming straight on from south, but it still sounds like bad news. Hang in there, little lizards, and good luck to all the denizens–human, saurian, and other–of the Bahamas.

Friday morning update: it’s right over Abaco:

Earlier in the year, we reported on a pair of papers describing the enigmatic and little known Ecuadorian horned anole, Anolis proboscis. Now, the Tropical Herping website has put up an information page on this species which comprehensively summarizes what we know and, as a bonus, reports unpublished observations that the species has been located at a number of new localities, bringing to 12 the total sites from which the species has been reported.

Turns out today is Reptile Awareness Day. The reptile channel has some suggestions of things to do to in honor of the day and Audubon has put their Reptile and Amphibian Field Guide iOS app on sale for $0.99.  So is anybody doing anything special to celebrate?

It’s time to vote for the best anole photos of 2012. We had an overwhelming response with more than 60 entries, most of them excellent. Our panel of experts slaved over the submissions to choose 24 semi-finalists. Decision criteria were the quality, crispness, and composition of the photo, as well as the species.

You can vote for up to 3 photos. Voting will end on October 31st, at the stroke of midnight.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVdLNIXujL8

My vain attempt at alliteration with the title, here’s a news story on those pesky lizards mucking about with electrical power (sorry I don’t know how to avoid you watching the ad at the beginning).

From Dustracks on the Web.

Janson Jones has a binder full of anoles.

In the latest issue of Copeia, Eric Pianka provides the latest positive review of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree.  Its easy to understand why this review appears more than three years after the book’s publication when you remember that Pianka has been a busy dude who most recently gained attention for recovering from the dead.  Anole Annals also has archived links to other reviews of the book for those interested.

Three weeks ago, I initiated discussion of Nicholson et al.’s recent monograph by noting that it is the most important paper on anoles published in recent years. We’ve had a lot of interesting discussion of many aspects of the paper since then, but we should keep in mind, even in the light of this discussion, that regardless of what one thinks about the various issues debated on our pages, this paper certainly represents a comprehensive compendium of knowledge about anole taxonomy, systematics, biogeography and ecology, and as such will remain an important resource for years to come.

Having said that, I wanted to use this last post of mine to synthesize what I see as the conclusions of the past three weeks’ discussion concerning the “bold hypothesis” of anole biogeography and evolution presented by Nicholson et al. Their hypothesis can be boiled down to three main points: Anolis is much older than previously recognized; divergence into eight major clades of anoles (which this paper raises to generic status) occurred when the geological blocks that now form the Caribbean islands separated from their previous, connected position where they had served as a landbridge connecting North and South America (and, hence, anole biogeography is primarily the result of vicariance, rather than dispersal); and the history of anole habitat use is primarily one of change from a large, crown-inhabiting species to smaller species found on or near the ground. How does this scenario stand up in light of discussion on AA?

Anolis Is Much Older Than Previously Recognized

Nicholson et al. conclude that the ancestor of anoles diverged from their nearest relative 95 million years ago (mya) and that diversification to produce the eight major clades occurred 72-87 mya. These dates are far older than other estimates; three recent studies have pegged the split between Anolis and its sister taxa as occurring 25-80 mya.

Nicholson et al. molecular phylogeny with their dates of divergence and with dates corrected assuming a younger date for the Mexican amber anole, A. electrum in parentheses. The arrow points to the phylogenetic position where A. electrum was placed by Nicholson et al.

This proposed antiquity of anoles is surprising, but is almost surely mistaken.

Read More