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Distribution and occurrence data for Anolis sagrei from the Map of Life.

Ever wonder where you can find Anolis gorgonae?  Or what about Anolis proboscis?  How about some 25,000 other species?  Well, then you might want to go have a look at the Map of Life (www.mappinglife.org).  Even just casually perusing this web database for some odd species searches can be really eye-opening.

The Map of Life is an impressive and ambitious project that aims to map the distributions of all life on Earth.  The database assembles and integrates different sources of data for species occurrences and distributions worldwide, including expert species range maps, locality information, ecological data, and maps from organizations like IUCN, WWF, and GBIF.  Best of all, accessing this information is completely free to the public.  The species distribution data are projected onto Google Earth maps, and users can select different map displays and toggle features on and off.

This is already a great resource, but the project team has plans to add even more features and more data in the future.  With the increasing use of spatial and geographical data in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation research, projects like this are going to be extremely valuable for the scientific community.

Reference for the Map of Life vision paper:

Jetz W, McPherson JM, and Guralnick RP (2012) Integrating biodiversity distribution knowledge: toward a global map of life. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27:151-159.

AA reader, anole scientist, and anole breeder Veronika Holáňová has written a beautiful book on anole husbandry. I can attest that the photos are exquisite, and here’s what she has to say about it: “It is a book for all Anolis lovers who would like to try to keep them in captivity. In that book I have my experiences with keeping different anole species after many years :-).” The only catch is that it is in Czech, though Veronika says that “maybe one day it could be in English too.” Let’s hope! The book has a nice webpage from which it can be ordered.

A while back, we had discussion of a photo of a beautiful turquoise Anolis grahami. Here’s a much better photo that just popped up on Instagram. I’d love to see one of these in life. Joe Burgess says they’re from the Hellshire Hills area of south central Jamaica.

This, of course, is not the only time that blue color has evolved in anoles. I wonder what drives it. I’m told that the shockingly blue A. gorgonae on Gorgona Island is surprisingly cryptic in the shaded canopy.

And while we’re on the topic of beautifully blue A. grahami, it turns out that this species has just been featured on The Featured Creature (thanks to AA reader and Duke University anole wrangler Maria Campano for pointing this out). Enjoy the lovely photo below and check out the full story over there.

More photos and story at http://www.thefeaturedcreature.com/2012/08/mystery-solved-most-beautiful-anole.html?showComment=1346442604552#c1991819277006706898

Photo by Karen Cusick.

That’s how big. This little gal is probably just out of the egg. Thanks to Karen Cusick, author of Lizards on a Fence, for the photo.

Or, for another take on the same topic, check out Dust Tracks on the Web‘s latest offering.

From Dust Tracks on the Web

The guys at Day’s Edge Productions have wrapped up their expedition to Spanish Islands in quest of colorful and highly variable lacertid lizards. They’ve posted their swan song of a video, which reveals extraordinary differences in color in populations literally right next to each other. As always with this team, worth watching.

And while we’re on the topic of great lizard videos by Day’s Edge, here’s a wonderful one on the introduced anoles of Miami and Neil Losin’s doctoral work. Though made more than a year ago, for some reason, it seems to have just made it’s way to Youtube, which is reason enough to pop it up here.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsLDPwdX748&feature=g-high-lik

Grand Prize

Just a reminder about this year’s photo contest. Last year we had an Anolis photo contest and produced a 2012 anole calendar. Both were wildly successful. This year, Anole Annals is is combining the two with the 2012 Anole Photo Contest. The grand prize winner will have her/his photo featured on the front cover of the 2013 Anole Annals calendar and will receive an autographed copy of Karen Cusick’s lovely book, Lizards on the Fence. The second place winner will receive a copy of the calendar and have her/his photo featured on the backcover of the calendar. We’ve already got a number of good entries, but the judges feel that there’s still a chance that new entries can rise to the top. So don’t delay–submit today!

This year’s calendar. Put your photo on the cover of next year’s version!

The rules: please submit photos 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 photos 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 September 30, 2012.

Blair Hedges provided an update on CaribHerp. We’ve posted on CaribHerp previously, and Blair told us of some exciting new developments. Perhaps the most exciting, an effort to make an app to identify frog calls! Also, Blair is still offering free, cool posters!

Here’s the abstract of the talk:

With color images and distribution maps, caribherp.org functions as a checklist and quick identification guide to the ~800 species of amphibians and reptiles of the West Indies. Sounds and video are included, when available. An initial list of species accounts is first generated by the user, for all species or only those on one island, or those having a search term in their account. The list may be further sorted in many different ways (taxonomy, common name, author, etc.). A new journal, Caribbean Herpetology , is integrated with the database. An online form may be used to submit short articles in the journal, reporting new and significant information on distribution, behavior, and other categories. After review and acceptance, these articles are published online and the information is integrated with the database. Photos, video, and sounds (frog calls) may accompany article submissions. As the journal develops, longer articles will be published. Two other related Caribbean web resources have been released as well: caribmap.org and caribnature.org . CaribMap is a resource for exploring historical map images of the Caribbean, now numbering more than 800 maps dating back to the early 1500s. Map images are fully sortable and searchable. Each map is scanned at high resolution so that small toponyms may be resolved. CaribNature is a conservation site that presents multimediaessays on the natural history of the islands and difficulties facing the biodiversity, starting with Haiti. The mediography is mostly from the work of professional videographers and photographers. The site is available in English, Spanish, and French.

The Anoline Lizard Specialist Group has been formed to gather information and help plan action on the conservation of anoles. Interested? Contact the organizers at anolinelizardsg@gmail.com or check out www.anolisconservation.org.

After a slow start (believe it? An anole-less first day), the anole talks begin today. There were a couple of omissions and changed times in the previous list, so hopefully all talks and posters are included and correctly listed here. Notably, Dave Steinberg’s talk on head-bobbing was not included in the previous list; he talks today at 1630. I’ve rearranged the talks into chronological order. Two observations become apparent: first, the conference organizers have cleverly backloaded the schedule to keep people from leaving the conference early. There are 9 anole talks on Monday, as opposed to 4 today, 1 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Second, some tough decisions are going to have to be made, as there are four occasions in which two talks are scheduled at the same time. Bummer. Here they are:

Stuart, Yoel – Session 35 Friday 14:45, “A real-time test of a classic hypothesis: rapid, replicated character displacement in Anolis carolinensis following invasion by a congeneric competitor”

Bienentreu, Joe-Felix – Session 42, Friday 15:45 “Taxonomy and phylogeography of the Anolis pachypus complex (Squamata: Iguania: Dactyloidae)”

Warner, Daniel – Session 35 Friday 16:45, “Spatial and temporal variation in phenotypic selection after experimental introduction in the lizard Anolis sagrei”

Kolbe, Jason – Session 35 Friday 16:45, “Adaptation and plasticity during Anolis lizard introductions”

Losos, Jonathan – Session 58 Saturday 9:15, “Natural History of the Little-Known Horned Anole of Ecuador, Anolis proboscis, and its equally little-known relative, Phenacosaurus orcesii”

Mahler, D. Luke – Session 89 Sunday 11:30, “Discovery of a short-limbed giant Anolis from Hispaniola supports a deterministic model of island evolution and community assembly”

Wollenberg Valero, Katharina – Session 98 Sunday 15:30, “Diversification within adaptive radiations: the case of Hispaniolan trunk-ground anoles”

Ingram, Travis – Session 130 Monday 14:00, “A new comparative method that does not require pre-assigned ecomorph categories confirms exceptional morphological convergence in Caribbean”

Castañeda, Maria del Rosario – Session 130 Monday 14:15, “Multivariate analysis of the morphological component of ecomorphology in mainland Anolis lizards (Dactyloa clade)”

Powell, Brian – Session 130 Monday 14:30, “Brain Evolution Across the Puerto Rican Anole Radiation”

Crawford, Nicholas – Session 132 Monday 14:45, “The genetics of colorful pigmentation in Anolis lizards”

Harrison, Alexis – Session 130 Monday 14:45, “Correlated evolution of microhabitat, morphology, and behavior in West Indian Anolis lizards: A test of the ecomorph hypothesis”

Schneider, Christopher – Session 130 Monday 15:45, “The genetic basis of phenotypic variation and divergence in Anolis marmoratus”

Leal, Manuel – Session 129 Monday 15:45 “Behavioral flexibility and problem‐solving in lizards”

Steinberg, David – Session 39 Friday 1630 “Heads‐up: signal modulation and receiver distance in anoline lizards”

Sherratt, Emma – Session 130 Monday 16:45, “The deep history of Anolis habitat specialists”

Friday Posters: Castañeda, Maria del Rosario – Poster board 171, “Anolis lizards in the Encyclopedia of Life”

Gubler, Jenny – Poster board 176, “Investigation of the Evolutionary Relationships Among Species of the Anolis cupreus Complex”

Saturday Posters: Otero, Luisa – Poster board 132, “Habitat influence on annual reproductive cycle of Anolis cristatellus in Puerto Rico”

Cantwell, Lisa – Poster board 108, “Response of Anolis sagrei to Acoustic Calls from Predatory and Non-predatory Birds”

Sunday Posters: Mahler, D. Luke – Poster board 336, “A new organization dedicated to the conservation of Anolis lizards: The Anoline Lizard Specialist Group”

Rubio-Rocha, Laura C. – Poster board 396, “Continuous reproduction under a bimodal precipitation regime in a high elevation anole (Anolis mariarum) from Antioquia, Colombia”

Rubio-Rocha, Laura C. – Poster board 397, “Geographic variation in the lower temperature tolerance in the invasive brown anole, Anolis sagrei and the native green anole, Anolis carolinensis”

Vega, Sondra – Poster board 402, “Omnivory in Puerto Rican Anolis lizards“

The Dutch Caribbean Natural Alliance has put up a nice webpage on the endemic anole of Saba, Anolis sabanus. The page is full of information and points out that the species is quite common on Saba, contrary to rumors swirling around the internet that it is rare–rumors started, I think, by breeders trying to increase the value of their stock.