Category: All Posts Page 139 of 153

Doctor Anole, Mt. Lemmon, AZ

Among biologists one of the greatest honors is having a species named after them. Among climbers one of the greatest honors is inspiring the name of a new climb. (In fact, much like biology, local ethics and traditions often govern route nomenclature.) It turns out that I have scarred my research has inspired an old friend to name a new route with reference of our favorite scaly beasts. Here I present you, “Doctor Anole” at the Lizard Boulders, Mt. Lemmon, AZ.

Because climbing can, to some, seem a bit esoteric let me take a moment to explain the photo. Unlike climbing mountains or large cliffs, “bouldering” is a form of climbing where a person attempts to climb for only a few moves, but where each move may be at the absolute limit of their ability. Bouldering can just be a single move or, to the most brave, reach death defying heights while rope-free. On Doctor Anole the goal is to climb to the top of this boulder using the small seam for handholds. A pad is also placed below the climb to cushion a potential fall. Hopefully the moderate grade of V2 does not directly reflect my friend’s opinion of my climbing abilities or research.

You voted for the photos, now get the calendar featuring  fabulous photographs of 12 anole species taken by eight different anole photographers. A great stocking stuffer! On sale today at Zazzle.com. A share of all proceeds go to a worthy cause–specifically, buying calendars for next year’s photo contest winners.

Watch the cuban documentary: ANOLIS: VIGILANTES DE DÍA

In the year 2010, a group of students from the International School of Film and Television from San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, made a film: “Anolis: Vigilantes of the Day,” an excellent documentary of nine minutes about Cuban anoles. The documentary is narrated in Spanish and has the best aspects of the natural history of these lizards, including some ecomorphs and the use of the dewlap in displays.

It’s Halloween, so we thought we’d celebrate by putting up a scary anole image. You’d think the internet would be full of photos of spooky anoles, anoles in scary outfits, devil anoles, anole hobgoblins, etc., but you’d be mistaken. In fact, we could only find two appropriate images, and one of them (above) is from last year’s Halloween issue of AA (but still worth a read a year later). The other is a picture of an anole on a jack-o-lantern in Hawaii on flickr; respecting the copyright restriction, we will not reproduce the photo, but you can go check it out yourself.

Today’s important for another reason: it’s the last day of voting for the 2013 Anole Photo contest. If you haven’t already (or if you can trick the system into allowing you to vote again), vote now!

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.