Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery by Jennie Erin Smith is a page-turning historical account of the most notorious reptile smugglers in the United States. Many of the stories in Stolen World are derived from first-hand accounts provided by a core group of old-school smugglers, most notably Hank Molt and Tom Crutchfield. I was shocked at how open these folks were about their practices, particular given that some of them are still actively collecting, importing, and selling rare reptiles. Indeed, some of the book’s primary subjects now seem to regret their decision to share so much with Smith (I’ll return to this point later).
Congratulations to Anole Annal’s blogger Jonathan Losos on receiving the National Academy of Science’s Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal, which is awarded every four years for “meritorious work in zoology or paleontology published in a three- to five-year period.” The NAS recognized Losos for his “novel and penetrating evolutionary studies of adaptive radiation in vertebrates,” many of which are summarized in his recent book on anoles. The Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal‘s list of previous recipients reads like a who’s who of prominent 20th century ecologists and evolutionary biologists, and includes the man who coined the term adaptive radiation (Henry Fairfield Osborn ’29) and several of the main architects of the modern synthesis (Dobzhansky ’41, G. G. Simpson ’44 & 65, Sewall Wright ’45, and Ernst Mayr ’67). The fact that the medal is the size of dinner plate has not deterred Losos from wearing it daily.
Photo courtesy Paul Richards
Paul Richards and Kirsten Nicholson found this unusual knight anole while conducting their radio-tracking study on this magnificent species. Richards recalls: “I think we found him on the west edge of the “microbiome” of the Gifford Arboretum. I recall showing it to a well known herpetologist who claimed it was a temporary color change, so we held it overnight. It looked identical in the morning and we released it. I honestly can not remember if we bead tagged it or not (that would be stupid but…). We never saw that individual again, but I also cannot recall how far into the study we were, so our regular searches could have ended soon after. Local lizard fanciers have told me they have seen these color morphs before, so it is apparently somewhat common.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAgxpB9fn50
Duke University Press Release. Check out the cool video!
In 2004, Hurricane Francis wiped out all Caribbean lizards found on the keys near the Bahamas.
Seeing an opportunity to study evolution, Duke biologist Manuel Leal and his colleagues took lizards from a larger, nearby island, paired them up and then put the couples on seven of the small keys.
The scientists came back year after year to check on their experiment.
They observed the lizards’ legs getting shorter over time. But, the lizards’ legs did not all shorten to the same size, a hint of the founder effect, where traits from a founding species persist after years of adaptation. It is one of the rare times scientists have seen this phenomenon in nature.
The first results of the experiment were published in a Feb. 2 Science Express article.
You can read more about the study here. And how’s this for a newspaper article title: “Lowly lizards settle ‘founder effect’ theory“?
Citation: “Founder Effects Persist Despite Adaptive Differentiation: A Field Experiment with Lizards.” J.J. Kolbe, J.B. Losos, M. Leal, T.W. Schoener and D.A. Spiller. Science Express. Feb. 2012.
A. smallwoodi
C. barbatus
C. porcus
A. smallwoodi
A. smallwoodi
Well, I got with another Staff member here and took some photos for the header competition a while back, but we never got around to editing them in time. However, I have them now and thought I’d share them with you anyway. These are a few of the different species that we work with.
Will Baugher
Previous contributors have discussed the use of Anolis as an educational tool at the K-12 level (see here and here). But what happens when teachers don’t take anoles to the students? The answer is quite simple: the kids bring the anoles to them! Alex C., a sixth grader who recently graduated from my brother’s fifth grade class in PA, just passed along a “Discovery Quest” presentation that he created for fun (and to learn, of course). The topic: Green Anoles! I think it’s safe to say that our favorite lizards have so effectively permeated mainstream culture that the recruitment of anole biologists should prove an easy task from here on out. We look forward to having you in the field in about a decade, Alex C. (and all you other future anole experts)!
Anyone else with stories of anole addictions beginning at a young age? These can be auto-biographical or about those you know!
Many arboreal animals get from one place to another by jumping. But there’s a problem: branches, particularly narrow ones, aren’t stiff. As a result, as the animal starts to jump by pushing against the branch, the branch gives way and bends. As a result, some of the force that could be used to push off is dissipated in pushing the branch away. One potential solution would be to avoid bend-y branches; another would to make like an Olympic high diver and wait for the branch to spring back, and then use the recoil to help launch the animal forward. Do animals use any of these tricks? Or is their jumping compromised on pliable surfaces?
Turns out that there hasn’t been much work on this, but the research that has been conducted, on birds and primates, has showed that jumping performance is, indeed, reduced on flexible surfaces and that there is no evidence for animals powering off a branch’s recoil. No work has been conducted on small animals, so Casey Gilman set out to remedy this shortcoming by examining the jump biology of the Florida green anole. You can read here about the background to her study and see some photos of the study site.
The main findings of the study can be summarized easily: 1. In the wild, green anoles frequently use very compliant (bend-y) surfaces such as narrow branches and leaves; 2. In the lab, when anoles jump, they do not use the recoil of the support to increase their jump distance; and 3. The more flexible the support, the great the reduction in jump distance.
The most exciting finding of the study, however, was something completely unexpected. The reason that lizard jumps were short from very flexible supports was not just that the support’s give wasted some of the lizard’s push. Rather, what happened was that as the support recoiled, it smacked into the underside of the tail of the launching lizard. This in turn pushes the back end of the lizard up and the front end down, and instead of sailing through the air with the greatest of ease, the lizard does an ungainly face plant, as the video above illustrates. Apparently, this happened frequently when lizards jump off of very pliant surfaces.
Who knew? It certainly makes sense, but I have to say, I’ve never seen a lizard gobsmacked by a branch as it jumps. Maybe it happens too fast to actually recognize what’s happened, but I don’t recall seeing lizards jump in such a klutzy manner. Has anyone noticed something like this in the wild?
More generally, an obvious next step is to not only measure the pliancy of the perches on which lizards can be found, but to observe their movements and see if they choose to jump from particularly stiff surfaces, relative to the ones they use more generally. Word on the street is that Gilman has already conducted just such a study, with fascinating results. Stay tuned!
We’ve already posted on Anole, the world’s first gay comic book superhero (here and here). However, since that post, much more information has appeared on the internet, so it seemed time for an update.
I won’t review the particulars of his history because there’s now quite an extensive, wikipedia-style entry here. Rather, I think it’s worth discussing what super powers an anole-based superhero is endowed with. And I’ll cut straight to the chase: I think Marvel Comics kind of blew it.
So, here’s what Anole can do:
> Run slightly faster than a human (whoo! Impressive. Anyone remember Antman from Saturday Night Live?).
> Regrow severed limbs, salamander-style.
> Superhuman reflex speed–that one sounds right on.
> Alter skin color and appearance to blend in–this would make a good topic for a post–do anoles actually do this at all? Or, for that matter, do those renowned tricksters of the saurian world, chameleons, engage in such subterfuge?).
> Stick to and climb walls of any type, “a la Spiderman” according to the website (how about “a la anoles”?).
> Shoot his sticky-ended tongue out great distances–whoops, wrong lizard clade.
> Superhuman strength, but only in his right arm, which is regenerated.
Anole also has a number of interesting talents and interests, including that he is very good at hand-to-hand combat, enjoys theater, speaks French, and likes playing frisbee, basketball and pool.
Now, personally, these attributes don’t scream out “Anole” to me. So, I put it to you, Anole Annals readers–if you were going to create a superhero named Anole, gay, straight, bi, celibate or other, what attributes would he or she have? Perhaps we can petition Marvel to create another named Dactyloa or Chamaeleolis.
Non-alphabetically arranged, the ABC islands lie in a row 20-50 miles north of Venezuela with Curaçao sitting in between Aruba 50 miles to the west and Bonaire 30 to the east. Like many small Caribbean islands, each of the islands harbors but a single species of anole. Previous posts have discussed the inhabitant of Aruba and Curaçao, Anolis lineatus. Bonaire’s anole, however, is a beast of an entirely different stripe.
Anolis bonairensis. Photo by Jonathan Losos
What is curious is not the fact that a small island, not too far from other islands, has its own endemic species. Such anole species occur routinely in the Caribbean, such as A. lividus on Montserrat, A. nubilus on redonda, and A. sabanus on Saba. Rather, the oddity of A. bonairensis is its evolutionary heritage.
Young knight anole. Photo from http://www.repticzone.com/forums/Anoles/messages/2236899.html
There’s not a lot in the literature on the size of hatchling anoles, especially the giants, and such toddlers are not well-represented in museum collections. The photos here, easily gleaned from the web, indicate that newborn knight anoles are substantially larger than hatchlings of smaller species. What about other anoles? Does anyone out there know how the size of hatchlings of other large anole species? And how big are the eggs? Pictures, anyone?
Fresh out of the egg. Photo from http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/RandeMchance/Anolisequestris1dayold.jpg