Anole Annals

Color Catalogue For Field Biologists

On January 3, 2013

Anole biologist Gunther Köhler has produced a handy manual, available from Herpeton publishers, to help describe colors of specimens, especially in field situations. The book’s introduction can explain better than I what it is used for and why it was written:

The accurate description of the coloration in life of organisms represents an important component of the work of any field biologist. Subtle differences in the coloration in life, such as in the color of the iris, the lining of the mouth cavity, or the tongue are diagnostic for certain species and have been used by taxonomists to differentiate among species.

Whereas many aspects of the external morphology of scientific specimens can be preserved with proper fixation methods, there is still no way to assure the long-term conservation of the coloration in life in such specimens. This is especially true for animals traditionally fixed with the help of formalin and ethanol, such as fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, and then stored as a wet collection. Colors such as red, yellow, and orange disappear rapidly once the specimen is placed in the preservative. Green-colored amphibians and reptiles can turn blue, lavender, purple, or black within a short time after preservation.

The Catalogue also provides definitions and examples of different phenotypic characteristics.

Of course, taking photographs of animals helps to document the coloration in life. Possible drawbacks to this technique are incorrectly adjusted white balances, which cause colors not to be reproduced accurately. Also, photographs often do not show coloration of hidden body parts. Therefore, biologists have a long tradition of recording colors by making written descriptions. Since individuals see colors differently and because it not easy to define, for example, different shades of brown or green in words, having a color standard helps to produce more objective and detailed descriptions that also have a greater chance of being reproducible. Such a reference can be used to compare descriptions made by different persons at different times and places. For decades, field biologists have utilized the “Naturalist’s Color Guide” by Frank B. Smithe (1975-1981) as the standard reference for color descriptions. However, for many years now, this important reference has been out of print and is no longer available.

I have used Smithe’s “Naturalist’s Color Guide” (called “Smithe Guide” from here on) extensively during the past 20 years, and my copy now clearly shows signs of this intensive usage under field conditions over the years. With no hope of being able to obtain a copy in good shape to replace my old one, I decided to produce a new reference to fill the gap left by the now unavailable Smithe Guide.

The resulting “Color Catalogue for Field Biologists” you are holding in your hand is not a duplicate of the Smithe Guide.

Anole Annals Viewership Triples In A Year: 300,000th Visit Impending

By Jonathan Losos

On January 2, 2013

In All Posts

Some time in the wee hours tonight or early tomorrow, the 300,000th visitor will traipse through Anole Annals. Not bad since we only reached 100,000 barely more than a year ago, on December 16, 2011, when some lunkhead from Valdosta, GA logged in. Who will claim this great honor? And when will it occur? You can keep track yourself by checking the stats counter at the bottom of the sidebar on the right side of the screen. And if you haven’t done so before, click on the world map just above it, to see in rotating 3-D where people are visiting AA right now.

Next AA milestone: our 1000th post, slated for later this winter. So far, in our two year and change history, we’ve had 919 posts by 87 contributors from 11 countries and five continents. Not to mention 3,356 comments.

18 Anole Talks At SICB Meetings Starting Tomorrow

By Jonathan Losos

On January 2, 2013

In All Posts

As Martha Muñoz reported two months ago, the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology meetings, beginning Thursday in San Francisco, will be awash with anole research. Check out the list of talks here, the full story in Martha’s post, and stay tuned for updates from ‘frisco.

Holiday Observations Of Anolis Maynardi

By Pat Shipman

On January 1, 2013

In Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field

Our A. maynardi in Little Cayman seem to be thriving. They have learned when I water the garden & have taken to either dropping out of the trees to lick waterdrops from the bushes or positioning themselves in advance. We also often see maynardi climbing up the outside of the window screen & licking the metal or licking the A/C unit..

Does the window screen taste salty too?

Licking the airconditioner, for salt? A wet-finger test showed that the surface was slightly salty. Photo by George Chaplin.

Waiting for water in the morning.

Goodbye Lizard Year

By Ramon E. Martinez-Grimaldo

On December 31, 2012

In Anole Art, Literature, and Humor

According to the Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, today is the end day of the Year of Lizard (2012) and the arrival tomorrow of 2013 marks the beginning of the Year of the Snake.

On the lizard’s year, the anoles were present in the poster (with Anolis grahami) and the november month on the Monthly Calendar (with Anolis phyllorhinus). Maybe for next calendar will be present Anolis pseudoophiosaurus.

Guide To Anoles Of Rio Palenque, Ecuador

By Jonathan Losos

On December 31, 2012

In All Posts

Recently we posted the Poe lab’s guide to the hyperdiverse anole community of El Cope, Panama, which harbors 12 anole species. Only slightly less diverse is the community of anoles at Rio Palenque, Ecuador, which has 11 species, and the Poe team has put together a guide for this locality as well. A small version appears below, and the full size pdf can be accessed here.

Research To Suffer As Chicago’s Field Museum Of Natural History Redefines Its Mission

By Luke Mahler

On December 30, 2012

In All Posts, Anoles and Anolologists in the News

As many readers have likely seen in recent news, original scientific research at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History is poised to take a major blow with the announcement that the museum is refocusing its scientific mission and will soon be scaling back its research activities. The Field is in serious financial trouble. In debt for the last decade and for years unable to balance its books, the institution has reached its borrowing limit and must find a way to resolve a 5 million dollar imbalance in its annual budget. For leadership through this growing crisis, the museum hired a new president and CEO, Richard Lariviere, who began his post in October. Last week, Lariviere and the museum’s board of trustees offered the first glimpse of their proposed solution: a 5 million dollar cut in annual operations expenditures, 3 million of which is to be shouldered by the museum’s science departments. Lariviere has stated that the Field plans to restructure its scientific mission, and that deep cuts in research staff – including the museum’s roster of tenured curators – could be expected. This is a scary prospect for the dozens of professional scientists who have built their careers at the museum, and very sad news for folks who, like me, took some of the first steps of their scientific careers there (I worked as a research assistant in the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles for a year after college; this experience shaped my decision to go to grad school, and led me to study lizard evolution!).

For the most part, the details of these upcoming changes have not been resolved, and will be the subject of internal deliberations in early 2013. Nonetheless, there are reasons for serious concern about the future of research at the Field. First, the museum is scrapping its four current research departments (Anthropology, Botany, Geology, and Zoology) in favor of a much leaner “Science and Education” department. In addition, a committee is currently taking preparatory legal steps necessary to lay off tenured curators, an action that is impossible under normal circumstances (to get this done, the museum must declare a state of financial exigency). These actions

Anoles In The Twitterosphere

By Jonathan Losos

On December 29, 2012

In All Posts

Just found this on Twitter. http://t.co/tHk3ZQBN

People often stop me on the street to ask “how do you come up with so many great topics to post on?” The answer I give is one simple word: “Twitter.” If you want to stay on top of the anole world, there’s no better way than to see what Anole Nation is tweeting. Try it yourself and you’ll see that most new anole papers get mentioned, as well as news of all sorts, and all kinds of great photos and other anolillenea.

And other great stuff, too, like this great curse: “I hope you accidentally swallow an anole and choke on it.” As well as many touching human interest stories, such as this one: “Good Christ! I just went to get the mail from the box and a stupid Knight Anole lizard over a foot long jumped on my arm before bolting.”

How do I do it? I simply search on “anole” and “anolis”. There are some drawbacks, though. For example, it seems a lot of people don’t know how to spell “alone” or–I’m guessing here–“ahole”. So a bunch of the tweets don’t make a lot of sense. And how could I forget? All the tweets about the comic book character Anole, who’s exploits seem to be drawing an ever greater audience (as befits the world’s first gay superhero).

Detour on the information superhighway

And then there’s the bane of my twitter-life: some Japanese tweeters have incorporated “anole” or “anolis” into their twitternames, so periodically there’s a flood of banal tweets in Japanese to scroll through (ok, you got me, I don’t really know that they’re banal because, after all, they’re in Japanese–who knows, maybe they are important insights on anole taxonomy and biogeography). Plus, recently a dude named Ben with his address at “@anole” has started tweeting a ton of irrelevancies.

And, of course, there is some information that you’d rather not know about, like the oft-retweeted link to a disgusting video of a teenager biting a live anole in half and eating it.

It’s a brave new cyberworld out there, but if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of the ever changing anolosphere, Twitter’s the way to go. Unless there’s some new thing that’s better.

Anolis Carolinensis Phylogeography: A Tale Of Two Studies

By Rich Glor

On December 28, 2012

In New Research

Figure 1 from Campbell-Staton et al. 2012.

This past summer, two groups of authors published reports on the phylogeography of the only anole native to the continental United States: Anolis carolinensis. Each report sought to characterize genetic diversity across this species’ range by identifying genetically distinct populations, inferring historical demographic events, estimating the absolute timing of diversification events, and testing the hypothesized impact of riverine barriers and Pleistocene glaciation on geographic differentiation.

Because these two reports effectively appeared simultaneously (Tollis et al.’s report appeared on June 7th in PLoS ONE and Campbell-Staton et al.’s report was accepted for publication on June 18th at Ecology and Evolution), and do not cite or discuss one another’s work, I thought it would be worth writing a post that compares and contrasts their results and conclusions. I’m going to focus in particular on three specific results reported by both groups of authors: (1) diagnosis of geographically and genetically distinct populations, (2) inference of historical demographic processes within populations, and (3) estimates for the timing of A. carolinensis diversification. While the two studies largely agree on the first two results, they appear to disagree somewhat on third.

1. Diagnosis of geographically and genetically distinct populations

Read More

Brown Anole In Boston

By Yoel Stuart

On December 27, 2012

In Anole Art, Literature, and Humor

I recently visited the Boston Institute of Contemporary ~~Anoles~~Art (ICA) and snapped the following picture. Please accept my apologies for the blurriness and my excuse that this was taken with a camera phone from the ICA’s glass elevator while being shuttled to the art installations on the fourth floor of the museum.

On the level second from the bottom, there’s a lizard with clear diamond back pattern on its back, highly reminiscent of females from Anolis sagrei and several other trunk ground anole species.

I’ve captured a part of an approximately three-story piece of nature-themed art, made mostly from cardboard, bamboo, and paper cut-outs, that featured likenesses of animals from across the animal kingdom. It seems that anoles inspired the piece’s numerous lizard cut-outs. In the picture, you can see a lizard that is clearly not geckoid, the usual suspect in this sort of thing. Rather, it has a head shape and diamond back pattern strikingly reminiscent of a female Anolis sagrei. This was the only picture I was able to acquire yet the other lizards in this art piece also had the characteristic brown anole gestalt.