Anole Annals

New Host, New Look

On December 9, 2011

If you’re here, you’ve caught on to the fact that we’ve moved to our new home at anoleannals.org. We’re having a header photo contest to celebrate this move, but before introducing the contest I need to cover some important information about the move.

First, I want to say thanks to Melissa Woolley for making the move possible. Melissa moved the entirety of past Annals – including posts, comments, categories, and tags – to a new server, so you can just keep on using the new blog the same way you did the old one. Note that comments and posts on the new anoleannals.org site will not appear at the old anoleannals.wordpress.com, and vice versa. To avoid confusion, the old blog will soon disappear entirely from view. Melissa painstakingly created new accounts for all of our old users on the new system, but you might need to reset your password, which you can do here. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this might cause and welcome any feedback about how we could further smooth the transition. Temporary glitches aside, this move permits us to make some much needed improvements and expansions to the blog (we’ll introduce one such improvement very shortly!). Those of you who routinely get to us by Googling “Anole Annals,” should use this opportunity to bookmark our new page!

OK, on to the photo contest! We’re looking for new header images and need your help. We’ll likely do a reader poll to pick a few winners among the entries received, but the precise format of the contest will depend upon the number of entries we get. Winning photos will earn a place of honor among our set of rotating header images. 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. I can’t wait to see all of your amazing anole images!

Anoles on Genbank

By Anthony J Geneva

On December 9, 2011

In Anole Genome Research, New Research

With the recent sequencing of the Anolis carolinensis genome and Thom’s recent post on resources for other anole species I got to wondering how many DNA sequences are available for anoles? In an effort to answer this question, I searched for DNA sequence data from Anolis and other genera now considered part of Anolis (Norops, Chamaeleolis, Chamaelinorops, and Phenacosaurus) on the NCBI’s popular GenBank database. I found that Genbank‘s nucleotide database contains over 29,ooo unique anole sequences. Not surprisingly, the most sequence (25,973) are from A. carolinensis. Remaining sequences are divided among 216 anole species. The top species after carolinensis are: krugi (433), distichus (378), sagrei (351) and cristatellus (328). Is anyone else surprised by these totals? I would have guessed sagrei would be second. I think A. distichus will at least double in the next few years, partly because I’m doing lots of sequencing from this species myself.

Only 29 species are represented by more than 10 sequences and half of the 216 species represented in GenBank are represented by a single (usually mitochondrial) sequence. The availability of this data highlights our prospects for asking evolutionary and ecological questions across the rest of anoline diversity, but also highlights the huge amount of work ahead if we are interested in making broad genus-wide comparisons. Admittedly, Genebank lags behind current research as most of us only post sequences at the time of publication (we have hundreds of sequences to be added in the next few years).

Can You Spot the Sleeping Anole?

By Daniel Scantlebury

On December 8, 2011

In Anole Annals Trivia, Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field

Somewhere in this photo is a sleeping anole. The species is one that has only been reported from the Dominican Republic a few times.

If you can find the sleeping anole in those photo, you will have contributed to cataloging the anole fauna of the Dominican Republic. Points if you can identify the species. Hint – the photo was taken on the northern slopes of the Sierra de Bahorucco approx. 12km east of the Haitian border.

The Kings of Greater Antillean Anole Taxonomy II: Thomas Barbour

By Rich Glor

On December 8, 2011

In Classics from the Literature

I previously introduced my mission to recognize the five anole systematists responsible for describing the majority of the anole species found in the Greater Antilles. The first king of Greater Antillean anole taxonomy was the prolific E. D. Cope. Cope was the last in a line of authors who described anole species that he’d never actually spent time with in the field (see also Duméril and Bibron). The next king on my list, by contrast, was an avid field biologist and conducted field work in the West Indies throughout his career.

Evolution of a Lizard Room, Part VI: Generating Food In House

By Rich Glor

On December 7, 2011

In Research Methods

Adult Gryllodes (image from http://www.just-green.com/)

In a previous post on the evolution of the Glor Lab’s lizard room, Julienne discussed our general strategy for acquiring anole food. As Julienne discussed, the crickets for our adult lizards are obtained primarily in the form of bi-weekly shipments from Fluker Farms. However, we also have a fairly large cricket breeding operation that provides many of the small crickets required by our hatchling lizards. One reason for maintaining this colony is that Flukers does not reliably supply pin-heads that are small enough for some of our newest additions. Another reason for maintaining this colony is the hope that this colony will eventually grow to the point that it also supplies feeder crickets to the remainder of our colony. One somewhat unusual thing about our colony is stocked with Gryllodes rather than Acheta (the type of cricket that you get from Flukers and other large cricket farms).

One Night in Antigua – Photos from a Layover with the Colossus Anolis leachii

By Martha Muñoz

On December 7, 2011

In Classics from the Literature, Natural History Observations

Early morning sighting of a female Anolis leachii on a leaf covered in raindrops.

Sometimes, they say, it’s about the journey, not the destination. This makes me think of exciting layovers I’ve had in Anolis country. At any place where the layover is long enough to permit stepping outside of the airport, I like to pop out and see what kind of anoles I can find lurking around the terminals. On a few occasions, travel requires an overnight stay in an exciting place. One of the benefits of working in remote Lesser Antillean islands is that infrequent (and unpredictable) airline schedules typically mean spending a night or two in tiny islands to and from the actual destination. For years I’ve been working in Montserrat, a small island with an active volcano, where I try to follow the flighty bugger Anolis lividus as close to the volcano as I can get. On our way home from Montserrat, we usually spend a night in Antigua, where the charming giant, Anolis leachii can be found.

View of a raincloud and rainbow as we descended into Antigua in January 2009.

Like most anoles from the Lesser Antilles, this species is abundant. However, few species from the Lesser Antilles are as large as A. leachii. It is a member of the bimaculatus clade of large anoles from the Northern Lesser Antilles. According to Scwhartz and Henderson (1991), it can reach a snout-vent length of 123 mm. For anyone who works with crown-giants, this may not seem so large, but for an aficionado of the Lesser Antillean anoles, Anolis leachii is a relative behemoth! Its body ranges from yellow to blue and green, and it’s covered in a purplish vermiculation. The large eyering ranges from a sulfurous yellow to a deep orange. Hands down, this is one of the world’s most beautiful anoles. Imagine my excitement when I got to spend a night chasing these lizards through the wilds of Antigua Village, a cushy beach resort teeming with Anolis leachii and the smaller congener, A. wattsii. Here I offer some photos of this dazzling species, and a bit of its taxonomic history.

Anole Biology Featured in the St. Augustine Times

By Jonathan Losos

On December 6, 2011

In Anoles and Anolologists in the News

Read up on the exciting experimental population biology studies of Dan Warner and Alexis Harrison here.

White Nose Fungus? Or Just Shed Skin?

By Yoel Stuart

On December 6, 2011

In Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field

Anolis carolinensis hatchling in our animal facility.

I’ve noticed that many of the anoles in my breeding colony occasionally have white protuberances emerging from their nostrils, like the two-month old hatchling to the left. I haven’t been able to determine whether these protuberances are the remnants of an old shed or whether the lizards have a fungus growing in their nostrils. By the time I catch an afflicted individual in its cage the protuberances are gone, seemingly because the lizard blew them out while moving to evade my hand. Has anyone experienced this phenomenon?

This Is Wrong on So Many Levels

By Jonathan Losos

On December 6, 2011

In Anole Art, Literature, and Humor

This brings up a bigger question: why isn’t there a spokesanole for any major company?

Scantlebags: A New Innovation for Anole Field Work

By Anthony J Geneva

On December 6, 2011

In Notes from the Field

Scantlebags being used in the field.

When in the field, we often need to temporarily house many animals from multiple localities for a short period of time. While doing this, we need to keep animals healthy and track collection sites during transportation. Anole researchers have used a variety of techniques to bag and sort captured anoles and often rely on commercial reptile bags, pillow cases or plastic bags.

Thanks to the ingenuity of Dan Scantlebury and his mother, the Glor Lab has another solution: Scantlebags. Scantlebags are individually manufactured in Stone Mountain, GA to our precise specifications. They are made from white ripstop cloth material that is machine washable. By making our bags from white fabric we can also write specimen data directly on the bag with a sharpie. Each Scantlebag has a zipper closure, allowing easy access to captured animals without completely opening the bag. You’ll have to trust us when we say that dealing with zippers is much easier than trying to constantly tie and untie pillow cases. Scantlebags come in sizes ranging from a few square inches (for small anoles and Sphaeros), up to bags that are about the size of a typical pillowcase (which can temporarily accomodate ~20 small anoles). Finally, each bag has a webbing strap in one corner which allows Scantlebags to be tied to a belt, where they are easily accessible but secure from accidental loss. The strap is at the opposite end of the bag from the zipper opening because the anoles we work with tend to aggregate at the top of the bag and are less likely to escape when the bag is opened from the bottom.

How does everyone else secure animals in the field? Any ideas for Scantlebag improvements? Let us know in the comments.