Anole Annals

Anolis porcatus juvenile stalks a skipper butterfly (Hesperidae) in Bani, Dominican Republic. Photograph by Miguel Landestoy.

Over the past 6 weeks or so, I’ve been spending a lot of time caring for Anolis carolinensis hatchlings as part of my common garden experiment. One of the most striking things that I’ve noticed about these growing lizards is how a hatchling’s hunting behavior changes over time. Description of juvenile hunting behavior and a cool hunting video from a different species after the jump…

Evolution of a Lizard Room, Part III: The Watering Wand

By Rich Glor

On November 5, 2011

In All Posts, Research Methods

The old (portable pesticide pump), and the new (premium watering wand). Note that watering wand is connected via a hose to the DI water supply at the top left.

The thing about keeping captive anoles that most surprises the uninitiated is the fact that they don’t drink out of bowls. Instead, anoles generally lap up water provided in the form of daily sprayings. If you have a few anoles in a terrarium at your house, a handheld pump action sprayer is more than sufficient (think Windex bottle with water in it). When you scale up to hundreds of cages, however, you’re going to need another solution. In this post, I briefly review some our lab’s efforts to improve spraying efficiency.

The Anolis Genome, Human Evolution, Transposable Elements, and Creationism

By Jonathan Losos

On November 4, 2011

In All Posts

For an interesting discussion of how the anole genome informs about human genetics, and discussion of a creationist’s claim that the anole genome can’t tell us anything about evolution, check out the latest post in Anolis Tollis.

What Can ‘Dead’ Anole Eggs Tell Us About Reptilian Development?

By Dan Warner

On November 3, 2011

In New Research

Incubating A. sagrei eggs.

Anyone who has incubated reptile eggs knows that moisture is important. Without sufficient moisture, eggs quickly desiccate and shrivel beyond any chance of returning to a healthy, turgid state. Because of this, eggs must experience positive water balance during most of the incubation period for successful embryonic development, and the relative moisture content of the incubation medium can greatly impact how much water is taken up by eggs. In turn, this will affect embryonic metabolism and will have important effects on hatchling size.

Those of us who have incubated thousands of reptile eggs have probably come across the occasional ‘odd ball’ that swells up at a healthy rate, but never hatches, and upon dissection nothing but water and yolk oozes out with no sign of an embryo.

Evolution of a Lizard Room Part II: Maintaining Humidity

By Rich Glor

On November 3, 2011

In Research Methods

As Julienne mentioned in the introductory post in our series on lab anole husbandry, we’ve been through a lot of trial and error over the past few years. One fairly persistent issue has been maintaining our lizard rooms temperature and humidity. Without humidification, our room’s humidity fluctuated from lows of around 5% in the winter months to highs around 30 or 40% during the summer months. We’ve used a number of different techniques to introduce more humidity into the room, with varying degrees of success. A brief recap of our experiences is below.

Where Did The Term “Ecomorph” Come From And What Does It Mean?

By Jonathan Losos

On November 2, 2011

In Classics from the Literature

Famous figure from the Williams (1972) paper in which the term "ecomorph" was introduced.

I just read another paper that uses the term “ecomorph,” this one in reference to populations of insects. We anolologists know that Ernest Williams introduced the term “ecomorph” in his classic 1972 paper (available here), defining an ecomorph as those “species with the same structural habitat/niche, similar in morphology and behavior, but not necessarily close phyletically.” The terms “ecomorph” and “ecomorphology” are now widely used. Was Williams really the one who coined the term? And is its current use consistent with the ideas he developed?

Evolution of a Lizard Room Part I: Introduction

By Julienne Ng

On October 31, 2011

In Research Methods

Anolis carolinensis hatchling and the egg from which it hatched

Breeding anoles to look at inheritance of dewlap color has been a major component of my research. It has also, however, been a major frustration. Every step of the process, from keeping the anoles happy enough to reproduce, to finding eggs, to successfully raising healthy hatchlings to adults has required much tweaking over the years. It has certainly been a work-in-progress and I am happy to say that with both minor and major changes over the years, our lab has transformed into a baby-making factory! This post is the first of a series discussing aspects of anole care, in the hope of both sharing our ideas with people in the anole community, as well as to start a discussion on other techniques people are using to breed/care for anoles.

Seven Anole Species Found at a Site on the Ecuador – Colombia Border

By Jonathan Losos

On October 30, 2011

In Notes from the Field

On the Tropical Herping website, Lucas Bustamante provides a report–accompanied by gorgeous photographs–of the seven species of anoles, as well as other reptiles and amphibians, found on a Tropical Herping field trip to Chical, a frontier site near the border of Ecuador and Colombia where the faunas of the Chocoan lowlands and the Andes meet. The diversity of species found on the trip was spectacular, but Bustamante aptly noted that the “anoles were the highlight.”

Dewy Anole

By Jonathan Losos

On October 29, 2011

In All Posts

Photo of a dew-covered A. carolinensis by Jude Haase at http://500px.com/photo/2565902?from=popular

NSF DDIGs anoles

By Anthony J Geneva

On October 28, 2011

In New Research

With the the deadline quickly approaching, the National Science Foundation‘s Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (NSF DDIG) program is on the mind on many graduate student anologists (myself included). These grants provide significant funding (up to $15,000 this year) to graduate students allowing them to expand upon their existing dissertation research. A large part of my preparation has been reading the successful proposals of other students. That got me to wondering how many other anole-centric proposals have been funded recently. Luckily, the NSF has a handy search function for just such a question.

I found 16 funded projects since 1987 coming from the labs of 9 PIs (8 of whom have a single funded student each – the 9th PI and most of his 8 funded students post here often). In total, students of anole science have been awarded $167,306 with a substantial uptick in the last few years. Here’s hoping this trend continues. Good luck to all applying this year.