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Bora Zivkovic, Blog Editor at Scientific American, has named  Anole Annals “Blog of the Week.” Congratulations to us! Here’s what the very perceptive Zivkovic had to say on his site, A Blog Around the Clock:

“For the greatest portion of the history of biology, every organism was a “model organism.” One would pick a problem and then choose which organism would be most suited for answering those particular questions. Then, in the 1990s, everyone jumped onto the bandwagon of studying just a handful of organisms that could be genetically modified at the time: mouse, fruitfly, thale cress, zebrafish, African clawed frog, bread mold, brewer’s yeast, or E. coli. All the other organisms were all but abandoned, only studied by a small number of die-hard researchers and, increasingly, amateurs. Now that technology allows us to investigate (and to some extent manipulate) entire genomes of almost any species we’d like, researchers are going back and rediscovering the abandoned model organisms once again. One of these is Anolis, a large group of species of lizards, noted for their dewlaps, and known especially for their fast adaptive radiation on tropical islands.

And now there is a blog that covers everything about these lizards – Anole Annals. Posts are written both by veteran researchers and their students, from several laboratories, as well as other contributors. They cover both recent and historical papers on evolution, ecology, biogeography, behavior, physiology, biomechanics and genetics of this diverse group of reptiles. They also describe their own research, including anecdotes and adventures from field work, equipment they use in the lab, and successes in discovery. On top of that, they help people ID the species from pictures, pay attention to the appearance of anoles in art and in the popular culture and generally have a lot of fun doing all of this. A blog entirely devoted to just one group of animals sounds very ‘niche,’ but what they did was build a blog that has something for everyone and is a great fun (as well as insightful and educational) read for everyone.”

AA previously has had posts on the new project in Puerto Rico to examine the effect of global warming on anoles and other critters. Now the project has a spiffy new website, well worth a look.

Luisa Otero, a team member on the project, gives us the backstory:

“Almost a year ago I started working as a Research Assistant in a Project titled “Vulnerability of Tropical Ectotherms to Climate Warming.” Until then, I had been planning to do my master’s degree studying sex determination within nests of hawksbill sea turtles here in Puerto Rico. However, after spending almost a whole month during the summer in the field working with Dr. George Gorman, Prof. Raymond Huey, Prof. Bradford Lister, and Prof. Paul Hertz, I began to question my research interests…. And what can I say? I just fell for lizards!

The main aim of the lizard project is to evaluate whether climate warming here in Puerto Rico during the last decades has caused changes in the thermal biology, reproduction cycles, and ecological interactions of anoles.  The approach involves comparing contemporary field patterns with those collected during the 70’s and 80’s by the investigators mentioned above.

A couple of weeks ago we published a website with information about the project, and now we would like to share it with you all.  We will use this website to share our findings as well as those of related studies of tropical organisms.”

Anolis carolinensis from south Florida. Photo courtsey of Neil Losin

Anolis carolinensis, the slender green anole from the southern United States is no stranger to most readers of this blog. This species is a model system for reproductive biology (here), is an emerging model for studies of development and Evo-devo (here and here), and is the first squamate lizard with a sequenced and annotated genome (here and here). Anolis carolinensis is, however, only one member of a diverse clade of lizards, though the natural history of many of these species is poorly understood relative to their popular cousin. Furthermore, the vast majority of carolinensis anoles* are known from few museum specimens meaning that robust descriptions of their morphology remain difficult to obtain.

I have recently become interested in the carolinensis series (for reasons discussed below) and have set out to better understand their biology. This post is meant to introduce readers to the diversity of carolinensis anoles and to put out a call for additional information that may be out there. While I have searched the wires for literature on these species, the community may know of hidden gems that have otherwise eluded me.

1) Species diversity and biogeography

The 13 species of the carolinensis subgroup and their localities are listed in the table below. Though many of these species were described in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries the list continues to expand as Orlando Garrido and colleagues explore Cuban biodiversity, uncovering local variants to the more widespread species. Garrido has described four new species of Cuban green(ish) anole in the last 25 years and recent molecular analysis suggests that localized variation may be more common than previously appreciated. For example, Rich Glor and co-authors revealed several independently evolving lineages of A. porcatus that are correlated with Cuba’s geological history of partial island submergence (paper here).

The anoles of the carolinensis series. Specimen counts are based on a survey of the big five anole collections. Click to enlarge.

While several species are geographically widespread (A. porcatus, A. allisoni, and A. carolinensis***), the majority of this diversity evolved on relatively small Caribbean islands or in distinct regions of Cuba.

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Over at “Catalogue of Organisms: inordinate fondness for systematics,” an Australian site dedicated to biodiversity, anoles are the clade du jour. Maitre d’ Christopher Taylor overcomes his entomological proclivities to write an extensive and insightful overview of anole diversity. Fair dinkum!

Several community challenges have emerged on Anole Annals in recent years such as the popular “Spot the anole” series (here, here, and here for example). Today I raise a new challenge to anole enthusiasts worldwide. I challenge you to post a single photo of anoles in the wild with the greatest species diversity. Integrity counts: photos and lizards should not be manipulated. The lizards should have naturally come into close proximity on their own volition.

To start this out I will set the bar to beat at three species. I took this photo last weekend at the University of Miami arboretum. The three species, from left to right, are A. distichus, A. carolinensis, and A. sagrei. I expect that three should be relatively easy to beat so lets see what you’ve got!

asks reader Esteban Dominguez Vargas, who posted the photo on his Flickr page. For more on A. anoriensis, read here.

Anole biologist and phylogenetic comparative methods wizard Liam Revell has shamelessly used a photo of Anolis evermanni just so we would advertise his three-week field biology course in Puerto Rico to be held next January. And you know what? It worked: the field-based course in tropical biology – focusing on ecology, evolution, and conservation biology – will be offered for the first time in January 2013 during the UMass Boston winter session (and hopefully annually thereafter). More info here.

The Centenary celebration at the Academy of Natural Sciences... The bicentenary will be a far less formal affair.

Two hundred years ago today a group of seven prominent Philadelphians: two physicians, a dentist, an apothecary, a manufacturing chemist, a distiller and naturalist Thomas Say formally founded the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the first natural history museum in North American. Today and for the next year the Academy will hold events celebrating its long history of contribution to natural history research.

Over the past 200 years the Academy has played a continuing role in advancing natural history research from the myriad contributions of entomologist/malacologist/ herpetologist Thomas Say, to Ruth Patrick‘s work testing the predictions MacArthur and Wilson‘s theory of island biogeography, and Ted Daeschler’s co-discovery and analysis of transitional fish-tetrapod fossils. This being Anole Annals, read on for a summary of the Academy’s contributions to the anole world…

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Can someone please identify this lizard to species?  Is it an anole?

The preserved lizard, and the bat next to it, are sitting on a shelf in Ernest Hemingway’s bathroom, which I visited this past January.  (Okay, I visited his estate and former home near Havana, Cuba, but you can’t actually step inside the house so I had to take the photograph–with my iPhone–through the open bathroom window.)

As everyone knows, Hemingway was a consummate sportsman, fisherman and hunter.  He especially was a fan of big game; many trophy heads of large African mammals decorate the walls of his living room.  Surely, however, there is no bigger game than the giant lizard shown here.  I presume that it was taken on his estate, but as far as I can tell there is no collecting tag or other kind of identifying label and nobody whom I asked could shed any additional light.  Indeed, no one else whom I was with had even noticed the two prize specimens sitting in adjacent jars.

For more information about the estate, look here: <http://www.hemingwaycuba.com/finca-la-vigia.html>.

Thanks very much.