Anole Annals

The 2013 Anole Annals Anole Calendar has been flying off the shelves, but a few remain, and for those of you savvy shoppers who’ve waited until after Christmas, now’s the time: Zazzle is offering 65% off through Friday. Never too late for a late holiday present! The order page is here; use the Discount code: GIFTSYOUWANT. Get yours before they’re all gone!

In response to many posts Anole Annals few weeks ago on the new classification proposed by Nicholoson and al., today the great website The Reptile Database updated the family Polychrotidae and applied the classification Nicholson with the eight genera.

52 species of Anolis
9 species of Audantia
9 species of Chamaelinorops
35 species of Ctenonotus
83 species of Dactyloa
20 species of Deiroptyx
169 species of Norops (the genus Chamaelinorops is included in the link)
11 species of Xiphosurus

Does this application mean that it has been approved by the scientific community?

The ReptileDatabase, an online listing of all species of reptiles, has just issued its latest update (Dec.24), and in it, has broken Anolis into eight genera following Nicholson et al.’s recent paper. Here’s what they have to say:

“Since the last database release 493 names have been added or have changed, including 62 new species, and 95 other changes such as elevations of subspecies to species status, resurrections, or simply changes in gender. The remaining 336 changes are changed Anolis names.

Anolis revision: The most notable change affected Anolis. We have preliminarily adopted the new Anolis names from Nicholson et al. (2012), even though these changes remain controversial. These authors split Anolis into 8 genera, among which Anolis now holds only 52 species. While this is phylogenetically more informative than a single large genus Anolis, it is unfortunately of limited use, if not confusing, due to unsatisfactory diagnoses of at least some of these new genera.”

Those of you who are long time readers of Anole Annals will remember our lengthy discussion of this proposed change earlier this fall. Readers interested in reliving the discussion might search using the term “Nicholson” to find the many posts on the topic.

The Reptile Database is relied upon by many online resources as the authoritative list of reptile species. As such, this decision will go far to gain widespread acceptance of this taxonomic revision. On the other hand, at least two papers are currently in press criticizing the paper and arguing against this taxonomic split. Stay tuned!

Steve Poe writes: “Several island sites are famous among anolologists for harboring multiple sympatric species.  Soroa in Cuba, La Palma in the Dominican Republic, and El Yunque in Puerto Rico each have been well-studied by community ecologists.  But many mainland sites are populated by anole communities that meet or exceed the diversity levels of these island sites.  One such hyperdiverse mainland locality is El Cope in Panama.  Twelve species of Anolis may be collected within 100 meters of the field house at El Cope.

Identification of mainland anoles can be difficult as there are fewer resources available relative to those for anoles in the Caribbean.  We have produced two-panel powerpoint guides for  El Cope that should aid in identification of anoles in and around these sites.”

Small versions are attached below and the full size version can be accessed here (be patient on the download–it’s a big file).