Anole Annals

A highly technologically advanced egg-laying location: a used bulk-size yogurt container (generously donated by various staff in the department) filled with moist vermiculite. In this case the lid is removed so that you can see the vermiculite inside.

While Anolis distichus may have plenty of options for where to lay eggs in the field, we needed to do a bit of experimentation before landing on a good place for them to lay their eggs in the laboratory environment. Other anole facilities tend to allow their lizards to lay eggs in the soil of potted plants, and we originally had our lizards laying in the soil substrate of their cages. However, eggs that spend time in soil tend to desiccate quickly, sometimes even before they’re discovered. Given that we knew our production would be limited, we wanted to avoid this risk during our breeding experiments. We arrived at a solution that is a combination of breakfast and gardening: yogurt cups filled with moist vermiculite.

SICB 2012: Open Discussion on Anolis Evo-devo and Genomic Resources

By Thomas Sanger

On December 13, 2011

In New Research, Research Methods

December 27, 2011
UPDATE: There has been a room change for this meeting. It will now be held in the Wando Room which is in the lobby level of the Embassy Suites hotel.

SICB 2012 is only three weeks away and a large number of biologists interested in Anolis evo-devo and genomics are expected to attend the Charlestown Meeting. Twenty-six presentations of anole research are scheduled, many with aspects of genomics, comparative development, physiology, or molecular evolution as one of their primary components (see my previous post here). To facilitate discussion among researchers from these disparate disciplines we are organizing an open discussion on the resources currently available to this young, but rapidly growing community. For example, beyond the A. carolinensis genome what sequencing efforts are underway? Because we do not yet have transgenic technologies, what cell-based resources are being generated that can be used to test molecular hypotheses in vitro? As the community builds its experimental and comparative infrastructure discussions such as this will be necessary to avoid costly duplication of efforts and to determine the needs of the community at large.

Animal, Vegetal, and Mechanical Perils of Fieldwork

By Anthony J Geneva

On December 13, 2011

In Notes from the Field

Dan Scantlebury recently recently posted a pair of success stories [1] [2] from the field. This post focuses on a darker side, the perils of field work. I’ve highlighted three stories below, one animal, one vegetal and one mechanical.

Mechanical Perils
No trip to the Dominican Republic is complete without transportation issues; we generally lose about a day every two weeks to dealing with vehicles. In our last few trips we discovered in the middle of a river that our supposedly 4WD truck was in fact FWD, had a Dominican gomero refuse to fix a flat because the tire was too worn (remarkable because nobody has lower standards for what qualifies as a functional tire than a gomero), and realized our rental truck had one tire that was significantly smaller than the other three only after driving from Santo Domingo to Barahona. Pictured above is my “favorite” vehicular mishap.

Quick Sketch on the Lab Whiteboard

By Yoel Stuart

On December 12, 2011

In Anole Art, Literature, and Humor, Research Methods

By Allison Hsiang, Fall 2007. A flatbed digital scanner is a great tool in the lab and the field for getting area, width, and scale counts from toepads.

The Kings of Greater Antillean Anole Taxonomy III: Ernest Williams

By Rich Glor

On December 12, 2011

In Classics from the Literature

Following Barbour’s work, nearly a quarter century would pass before another Harvard man picked up the mantle of describing new anoles. Among his many other contributions, Ernest Williams named 12 species of anoles from Jamaica, Cuba, and Hispaniola between 1959 and 1975. By the time Williams came along, most of the abundant and widely-distributed anoles had already been described. Many of the species Williams described are montane endemics (A. reconditus, A. christophei, A. etheridgei, A. dolicocephalus, A. occultus, A. singularis, A. insolitus) that might have been more difficult to access during previous generations of herpetological exploration in the West Indies. The last Greater Antillean species he described – Anolis marcanoi – was among the first “cryptic” anole species to be recognized with the aid of molecular markers. Even after his work describing new Greater Antillean anoles came to an end, Williams continued to describe new species of anoles from the mainland through the 1980s. In his last publication in 1999 (published after his death in 1998), Williams called an end to the era of discovery in anoles. For more on Williams, you can read the memorial published in the Harvard Gazette in 2009 by A. W. Crompton, Karel Liem and Jonathan Losos.

No Selection on Back Pattern in Anolis Humilis

By Jonathan Losos

On December 11, 2011

In New Research

Polymorphism in dorsal patterns of female Anolis humilis. Color version of photo in Parmelaere et al., Biol. J. Linn. Soc. (2001), courtesy E. Parmelaere.

The topic of female dorsal pattern polymorphism has been broached several times in Anole Annals posts. Such polymorphism occurs in some species and not others; a comprehensive survey by Paemelaere et al. demonstrated that it was much more common in mainland anoles than in island species, and in some clades more than in others.

But the bigger question is: does dorsal pattern matter to the ladies?

The Dating World of Anoles (WARNING: Contains Mature Content!)

By Audrey Kelly

On December 11, 2011

In Natural History Observations

In the summer of 2010, one of the Glor Lab field teams gathered video of Anolis distichus displays as part of a project to quantify display diversity across the Dominican Republic. A video of a fight from this expedition was posted on Anole Annals and some great color changes from the same trip were posted on the Glor Lab’s blog a few months back. Another exciting action that was caught on video a few times throughout the trip was a little bit of the hanky panky. Generally, the male performed a set of pushups after which he chased and contacted the female. The two then performed some pushups together, followed by a few minutes of copulation in a leg-wrap. Copulation was followed by more pushups from the male. The video above shows an example of this typical sequence of events. Viewer discretion is advised.

Anole Photo Contest–Grand Prize Winner Gets a Prize!

By Jonathan Losos

On December 10, 2011

In All Posts

To celebrate Anole Annals‘ move to a new platform (https://www.anoleannals.org/), yesterday we announced a photography competition–winning photographs will be put into the rotation of header images displayed at the banner at the top of the page. And now we add a sweetener to the pot. The Grand Prize winner will receive a copy of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation personally signed, with great embellishment and profuse gratitude, by the author himself. Surely a valued keepsake for years to come!

In order to be considered, an image must be precisely 1000 pixels wide by 288 pixels high. We’ll credit you as photographer wherever possible, but ask that images not include any text or watermarks. You can submit your images using our blog’s new ability to easily add images to a comment; just click the “Choose File” link beneath the comment box and navigate to your JPEG photo. One way to do this is to use Photoshop to resize individual images. From the Image Menu: go to “Image Size” then change the width to 1000 px.

Get your photos in now. Deadline some time soon, once we have enough good entries. Good luck! May the best photographer win!

Yellow Anole Eggs

By Rich Glor

On December 10, 2011

In Notes from the Field, Research Methods

A 'slug' next to a healthy, freshly laid egg. The scale bars in millimeters.

Anyone who’s raised anoles has likely run across the occasional slug. I’m not talking about shell-less gastropod mollusks, but rather about the flaccid yellow eggs that anoles lay from time to time. Slugs are uncalcified and generally considered infertile. Because slugs never develop viable embryos and tend to quickly rot when incubated most lizard keepers simply discard them. Is there anything to be learned from slugs? In our colony, we tend to recover the most slugs early and late in the breeding season, but we’re not sure why this is the case. Is it possible that the male and female are a bit out of sync, or that the female is priming her reproductive tract for the real deal? We’re also recovering more slugs in our hybrid crosses than in pure crosses, but we’ll have more on that later. Are any reproductive physiologists out there more familiar with the mechanisms responsible for production of slugs?

More Anoles from Day’s Edge Productions

By Yoel Stuart

On December 10, 2011

In All Posts

Screen shot of Anolis sagrei male and female from The Runner

Anole Annals regulars Nathan Dappen and Neil Losin, of Day’s Edge Productions, have won another prize for their filmmaking. This time, it’s for their entry, The Runner, in the World Wildlife Fund video competition themed “Life. Nature. You. Make the Connection.”

Screen shot of Anolis carolinensis male from The Runner

Footage of Anolis sagrei and A. carolinensis in Miami plays during seconds 40-45.