Anoland has a name-that-anole quiz. Here are the instructions, translated from French by an internet website: “Salvation to all, this is a new quiz. For each species a photo of the male as well as of the female (interesting to see the fanon and the difference of the latter as a function of sex) some very simple, others quite harsh.”
Photos by Veronika Holanova
Veronika Holáňová of Charles University in Prague not only studies anoles, but she breeds them in great quantities, including these wonderful Chamaeleolis. The “false chameleons” as they are called are renowned for specializing on eating snails as adults, and here are some of Veronika’s photos of them in the act.
The elegant skink, Plestiodon elegans, in Taiwan. Photo by Gerrut Norval
Most community ecology studies involving anoles focus on interactions between anole species. This is not surprising, because in the Caribbean, anoles are extraordinarily abundant and most of their ecological interactions are, indeed, with other anoles. Less studied are interactions with other taxa, the exception being predator-prey interactions, such as those with curly-tailed lizards (discussed many times in these pages, most recently here).
One widespread group of lizards are skinks, the most species rich family of lizards. There are few reports of anole-skink interactions, probably in large part due to the fact that skink diversity in the Caribbean is relatively low, and many species have been extirpated by human agents. However, anoles have been introduced to places around the world where skinks are more abundant, and some reports of interactions have been made. For example, in the Ogasawara Islands of Japan, A. carolinensis has reached high population densities and has been implicated in the decline of the native skink.
Gerrut Norval has been studying the introduced populations of A. sagrei in Taiwan. He now reports an observation of a somewhat odd interaction between a brown anole and a skink in which the anole fell to the ground from a utility pole and then was quickly chased back up the pole by an elegant skink, Plesiodon elegans. Given the relative size of the two lizards, attempted predation was probably not the cause. Gerrut speculates that this is an example of interspecific territoriality, transcending lizard family lines.
In Taiwan, A. sagrei reaches high population densities (as it does just about everywhere it occurs)–possibly cause for alarm for the native herpetofauna. Norval also mentions some intriguing preliminary observations: A. sagrei seems to attain smaller sizes at sites where it co-occurs with other lizard species. Interesting! Hopefully, we’ll hear more from Gerrut soon on this provocative possibility.
Says Cabela’s: “the merchandise is out of stock and we will not be getting it in till the spring of next year.”
What is up with these guys? Has every reader of Anole Annals recently ordered 100?
How else can you explain the fact that no one from either place has ever successfully logged onto Anole Annals? Surely, the populace there has tried, so clearly the governments are blocking us. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out the Map App on the right side of the page, which shows every location where someone has logged in (and don’t miss the real time rotating globe version–click on the “3D” link at the top of the page!).
It’s a pretty impressive map. Basically, just about the whole world has logged in. Regularly from the Gulf of Guinea. India, the Middle East, the far North, the Azores, Iceland, four different Hawaiian islands. You name it. Except New Guinea and the Galapagos. Even Madagascar logged on for the first time two days ago (I think they knew they were about to be singled-out). So I implore you, dear AA readers. Get on a plane, fly to those places, and log on. Please.
Herpetological Review has yet to make its content available on-line, so this is a cell phone camera image of the figure from the Krysko et al. report. (The original image was also taken with a cell phone, making this perhaps the first cell phone photo of a cell phone photo to appear on Anole Annals.)
Krysko et al. report in the March 2012 issue of Herpetological Review on a new element of Florida’s food-web: one species of diurnal, arboreal, and non-indigenous lizard eating another species of diurnal, arboreal, and non-indigenous lizard. Anole lovers will not be pleased to learn that this event involved a Madagascan day gecko (Phelsuma grandis) eating a bark anole (A. distichus) on Ramrod Key in Florida. Krysko et al. note that this it he first report of a non-indigenous gecko consuming a non-indigenous anole. This interaction ups the ante on the gecko/anole dynamics in Florida and Hawaii that have been reported previously here on Anole Annals and elsewhere.
Editor’s Update: Here’s a non-cell phone version of the same, courtesy of Ken Krysko.
Photo by Kenney Krysko
Imagine running quickly among a network of obstacles while attempting to maximize performance. It’s not an easy task, but one that arboreal lizards perform every day. In addition to variable inclines and perch diameters, arboreal lizards often encounter obstacles in the form of branches. The size of these branches, and their spacing, could have a significant impact on locomotor performance, such as sprint speed. Using a clever experimental design, Zachary Jones and Bruce Jayne (University of Cincinnati) recently determined how these important characteristics impact running performance in Anolis sagrei, A. carolinensis, and A. angusticeps (Click here to read paper from the Journal of Experimental Biology).
(A) Dorsal view silhouettes of the three Anolis study species compared against the diameter of the running surfaces. The lizards and cross-sectional areas of the running surfaces are all shown to the same scale. All running surfaces were cylindrical, but only one-half of the largest diameter is shown. (B) Schematic diagram of the peg treatments (not to same scale as the lizards). Pegs along the top center were placed at 10 cm (TC10) or 20 cm (TC20), horizontal pairs of pegs (HP) were placed every 10 cm, and alternating pairs of pegs (AP) oriented vertically or horizontally were placed every 10 cm along the length of the primary running surface (gray). The cylinder with no pegs (NP) is not shown.
Similar to previous studies, increases in perch diameter resulted in increased sprinting speed. With pegs added to the perch, things changed. When pegs were placed at 10cm intervals, and sticking directly up from the top of a 3cm-diameter perch, running performance of A. sagrei was sliced in half compared to running on a peg-free perch or a perch with pegs sticking out from the sides. Especially for the smaller perch diameter treatments, the number of pauses increased with increased branching, and this was greatest when the pegs came out from the top of the perch. This increase in pausing results in a decrease in overall speed (increased transit time) as they move through their habitat. This is also a result found by Higham et al. (2001), where turning angles in the locomotor path resulted in increased pausing in Anolis lizards. The take home message is that branching can have a negative impact on locomotion, forcing lizards to take longer getting from point A to point B. This could make them vulnerable to predation or reduce their ability to effectively capture prey.
Luckily, the array of pathways in an arboreal habitat provides an opportunity for Anolis lizards to select what works best for them.
Cheap Tommy Bahama Cohen V Neck Tee Shirt (Color: Blue Anole, Size L)
I kid you not. Check it out here. The color is “blue anole.” Just what does that mean? For one thing, it doesn’t look like the blue anoles I know.
Your intrepid reporter contacted Tommy Bahama to get to the bottom of this. To my amazement, they responded in about 3 minutes! Here’s what they said:
“Thank you for contacting Tommy Bahama. A Blue Anole is a type of lizard that is known for its distinctive blue color. Our design team determined that this particular shade of blue for the Cohen V-Neck T-Shirt (#TD2753) was similar enough to the shade of the lizard to be a color choice. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance regarding this matter.
We appreciate your patronage & continued interest in Tommy Bahama!
Kind Regards,
Tommy Bahama
Guest Services
Relax in Style”
The good news, though, is that even though TB sells it for this fine quality T for $48, you can find it for as low as $45 by doing a little googling.
Another week brings another nice batch of anole publications from a few previously held meetings. This batch comes from a combined special issue of General and Comparative Endocrinology that features articles from The Inaugural Meeting of the North American Society for Comparative Endocrinology (NASCE) and the 7th International Symposium on Amphibian and Reptilian Endocrinology and Neurobiology (ISAREN) held last July. The papers from this meeting are now available at the journal’s page at Elsevier ScienceDirect.
Wade (2012) provides a nice review of structure and function of three sexually dimorphic anole features in green anoles (Anolis carolinensis): the forebrain, the dewlap neuromuscular system, and the copulatory neuromuscular system. She also reviews comparative studies across anole species of the dewlap system and provides a detailed discussion of endocrine regulation in green anoles. Cohen & Wade (2012) investigated “Aromatase and 5 alpha-reductase type 2 mRNA in the green anole forebrain: An investigation of the effects of sex, season and testosterone manipulation.” Finally, in a non-anole paper about other iguanid lizards Hews et al. (2012) investigate “neuroendocrine correlates of aggression differences in adults of two Sceloporus lizard species.”
Anolis brunneus going at it on Crooked Islands, Bahamas. Photo by Michele Johnson
And we have a winner: but is it who you think? Photo by Andrew Battlees
Anolis brunneus is a close relative of A. carolinensis, but is unusual in that it has lost the ability to turn bright green–the best it can manage is a dull olive. Little is known of this species, but you can read the latest from a recent expedition led by Thom Sanger and Michele Johnson (1,2).
While on this trip, Michele and her student Andrew Bartley observed the following fracas between two male brunnei (incidentally, A. brunneus attains a size greater than most A. carolinensis and comparable to the largest A. porcatus).
Michele tells the story: “Near the end of our first full day of fieldwork on Crooked Island, part of our field team (Trinity University student Chris Robinson, recent graduate Andrew Battles, and myself) observed two males displaying extensively to one another, in full blue head color with their crests raised and their black “armpit” spot showing. (This seems to be a variation on the black eyespot in A. carolinensis that appears when the lizards are threatened.) We watched the lizards posture at each other for some time (perhaps 15 minutes), chasing and retreating, with many dewlap extensions and head-bobbing displays. The lizards eventually locked their jaws in the fight, and remained in this position for about 20 minutes, until one lizard threw the other off the tree branch – but the “hanging” lizard hung on, eventually pulling himself back up to the branch, and ultimately threw the other lizard off the branch entirely. During the fight, I took pictures from the ground, while Andrew climbed a tree (~3m up) to take pictures from the perch height of the lizards. It was quite an exciting way to end our first day of behavioral observation!”
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