What better adornment for an arm than a lovely knight anole? Thanks to Chuck Horne, the proud bearer of this lovely crown giant. We’ve featured anole tattoos before, but there must be others out there? Anyone want to share?
Three different individuals of Anolis cybotes that appear to have small pebbles or debris in their guts.
While analyzing some xrays of Anolis cybotes for my thesis work, I came across a few specimens that appear to have small dark masses in their guts. The numbers are pretty low – in over 200 xrays, I can only detect these masses in a handful of individuals. My curiosity was piqued. At first glance, they look like they might be gastroliths. Gastroliths, or gizzard stones, are rocks that animals eat to aid in digestion. Basically, the rocks help manually grind the food into smaller bits in a special portion of the digestive track called the gizzard. We know that many archosaurs (crocodilians, dinosaurs [including birds], and pterosaurs) have gizzards. Dinosaur gastroliths are some of my favorite fossils because they are usually polished and quite beautiful. However, unless I’m mistaken, lepidosaurs (squamates and rhynchocephalians) don’t have gizzards and aren’t known to have gut stones. Does anyone have an idea about what this could be? It’s possible that these are just accidental ingestions of small pebbles. Anolis cybotes do often forage near or on the ground, so perhaps it’s not so far-fetched for them to pick up a little rocky debris.
Also, check out this image of a regenerated tail!
Anolis cybotes with a regenerated tail.
Community ecology is a confusing field, confounded by the interchangeable use of many fundamental terms.
Recently, a group of graduate students and I discussed this strange paradigm and thought we would see what people’s own interpretations were.
If you have a spare 5 minutes while drinking your morning coffee, please could you fill out this short (4 question!) poll asking you to give your definition for; ‘community’, ‘assemblage’, ‘guild’ and ‘ensemble’. It will be cool to see how people’s opinions differ!
Many thanks
James
Everyone loves a good photo of an anole eating something, and here’s a fine one of an anole chomping down on a dragonfly (or maybe a damselfly). It’s from the Facebook page of Tigertail Airboat Tours located on the Tamiami Trail in Florida. No details on what happened, but looks like a happy ending for one festive anole.
Lyriocephalus scutatus. Photograph by Ruchira Somaweera, National Geographic
We at Anole Annals love horned lizards, and so were delighted to read about new research on Sri Lankan hornies, reported on the National Geographic Society’s webpage. Check out the article, which details recent research by Ruchira Somaweera of Sydney University.
Certatophora stoddartii. Photograph by Ruchira Somaweera, National Geographic
In August of last year, my wife and I made the move from Maryland to Florida so that I could begin my graduate work on signal evolution at the University of Miami. All of my research experience to that point had been centered on avian communication, but it wasn’t long after moving to Miami that my attention was drawn to the massive number of anoles displaying throughout my community. I’ll admit, one year ago my interest in anoles did not go beyond thinking that they were just another cool group of reptiles. However, in the six short months since moving to the area, it will come as no surprise to the Anole Annals community that I am hooked on these fascinating lizards.
This post serves as a friendly hello to everyone here at AA, as well as a quick note of gratitude to all who contribute to making this site such a fun and informative place for all things anole. On that note, I thought it was time I share something myself, and so I’ve included a video I recently recorded of two male bark anoles sizing each other up on a tree near my home. Of course, the video clarity seemed much nicer on my phone, but nonetheless, I hope you all enjoy!
httpv://youtu.be/R-1RlH38DCw
Happy Darwin’s day everybody!
This is the third serial year in which I have remembered Darwin Day in Anole Annals. In the first time, Jonathan Losos made a wise comment in citing the words of Darwin about an anole (read his comment here). That’s why, this year, I have added two pages from ‘The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex’ in which Darwin wrote about the sexual selection of Anolis cristatellus and Sitana.
There was a lot of discussion last month about the fabulous anole goings-on at the SICB meetings. However, there were other conferences sporting important anole work over the holidays. One of them was International Plant and Animal Genome XXII, described as “the largest AG-genomics meeting in the world” and held in San Diego in early January. Perhaps not a venue at which you’d expect anole work to be discussed, but there was Poster #720:
Mining the Most Species-Rich Amniote Genus: de novo Sequencing of Three Anole Lizards for Comparative Genomic Analysis #P720
Date: Monday, January 13
10:00 am – 11:30 am
Description:
Presenters: Marc Tollis Arizona State University, Elizabeth D. Hutchins Arizona State University, Walter L. Eckalbar Arizona State University, Michael R. Crusoe Arizona State University, Catherine M. May Arizona State University, Jessica Stapley Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Elise Kulik Arizona State University, Matt J. Huentelman Translational Genomics Research Institute, Rebecca E. Fisher University of Arizona, Kenro Kusumi Arizona State University
P720 – Mining the Most Species-Rich Amniote Genus: de novo Sequencing of Three Anole Lizards for Comparative Genomic Analysis
The repeated evolution of morphological adaptations to specific ecological niches makes Anolis lizards a spectacular example of adaptive radiation in vertebrates, and an ideal model for comparative genomics. The complete genome of the green anole (A. carolinensis) has already provided insights to the evolution of genomic and phenotypic variation in vertebrates. A multi-species comparison within the Anolis genus would increase the power of studies seeking to understand the genomic bases of species diversification. We carried out de novo whole genome sequencing and draft assembly of three species, the grass anole (A. auratus), the bridled anole (A. frenatus), and the slender anole (A. apletophallus). Here we report some of our preliminary comparative genomic findings. Analysis of the abundance and diversity of transposable elements within these genomes has revealed repetitive landscapes typical of non-mammalian vertebrates, yet variation between Anolis species is greater than what is observed across most mammals. This may have provided a genomic environment amenable to key adaptations during the Anolis radiation. Using well-defined models such as mouse and chicken, we identified orthologous genes integral to myogenesis and limb development, and are beginning to catalogue interspecific variation in protein-coding genes and cis-regulatory motifs. Functional anatomical and histological studies are being performed to quantify the tail and hindlimb muscle groups of these species compared to A. carolinensis. Our ultimate goal is to identify the divergent alleles associated with ecological speciation, thus bridging the genotype-phenotype gap.
A recent trip to the Everglades with Palm botanist Sara Edelman was meant to provide a welcome break from studying for qualifying exams, and give her the opportunity to further educate me on all things palm (which was previously limited to determining which lizards in Miami appear to live on them).
After spending the morning locating individuals of her study species, the native and state-threatened Paurotis palm (Acoelorrhaphe wrightii), we had received very little wildlife luck (which was the true reason for me volunteering to ‘help’). From past visits, I had found brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) at every car park along the Everglades National Park road down to Flamingo, likely hitch-hiking unwittingly on visitors cars, but to my knowledge they had yet to disperse convincingly out from these. On our second to last survey of the day, to this tree island off the main road just south of Mahogany Hammock, while searching for native green anoles (Anolis carolinensis) which I had yet to see, I heard some rustling in the bushes – lo and behold, sitting there as bold as day signalling straight at me was a male brown anole!
Everglades tree island characterised by Paurotis palm (Acoelorrhaphe wrightii), Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens), Buttonwood (Conocarpus sp.) and Pine (Pinus sp.), with [inset] brown anole (Anolis sagrei) observed inside
So ruling out human-mediated release or dropping by a clumsy predator, we could assume that this chap arrived there all by himself. This would suggest that brown anoles have no problems in traversing through sawgrass, although temporal factors may be important (i.e. dispersing during the dry season when water levels are low or absent).
The implications for the expansion of this species through the Everglades remain unclear, although their relationship with green anoles leads to a predictable outcome (discussed extensively on AA [1, 2, 3). Just how much effect is a highly fecund, hyper-dense, extremely competitive and resilient insectivore going to have on these small ‘island’ ecosystems?