Anole Annals

Here's a photo of a Carolina Wren that's caught a brown anole. But this story is something different. Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/24073599@N05/4545405419/

Brian Langerhans, he of mosquitofish fame (but with some anole credentials, such as here and here), writes from Raleigh, NC:

A strange interaction was observed this morning and I’m wondering if you know what’s going on. There are a number of A. carolinensis that live around our house, and today something weird happened. It’s a pretty cool morning, but a big male was on a ledge on our porch. Two Carolina wrens flew over to the anole, the anole sat still while one pecked on it’s body and tail, and then extended it’s dewlap and opened it’s mouth for a while (but was otherwise still) as the other wren pecked around and in it’s mouth. Do you know what might have been happening here? You’d think the birds were harrassing the anole (and maybe it’s too cold for the lizard to fight back), but it didn’t seem like it. There’s no way they could have been cleaning it (like removing mites), right? Any thoughts?

What’s All the Fuss About Dewlaps?

By Jonathan Losos

On October 8, 2011

In New Research

: Anolis carolinensis from http://www.mascotissimo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/anolis_carolinensis.jpg

A few years ago, Richard Tokarz and colleagues conducted a series of studies in which he surgically disabled the dewlaps of some male A. sagrei and discovered that these functionally dewlapless lizards had no trouble holding a territory and seducing females. In a new study, Henningsen and Irschick found that surgically reducing the size of dewlaps in male A. carolinensis by about one-third had no effect on male-male aggressive interactions in the lab. Makes one wonder what’s the big deal about having a dewlap.

Anole Done In By a Black Widow

By Jonathan Losos

On October 7, 2011

In Natural History Observations

This sad photo comes to us courtesy of arachnologist extraordinaire Sarah Crews, who snapped the unfortunate little lizard (or fortunate spider, depending on your perspective) in Parque del Este in the Dominican Republic. The offending spider is a member of the genus Lactrodectus, the black widows. What a way to go.

Such spider on anole predation is far from unknown. I myself have observed a baby anole dangling in a spider web in a limestone pothole in the Bahamas, and there are a smattering of reports in the literature, including an A. carolinensis taken by a wolf spider, an A. chrysolepis ensnared by a whip spider, and an A. limifrons overpowered by a jumping spider (photo below). Indeed, I vaguely recall a fine example of scientific entrepreneurship, when a spider guy and a lizard guy teamed up to produce two papers from one such observation, publishing in a herp journal a paper with the theme “anole eaten by spider” and an arachnological journal entry with the tag line “spider eats anole.” Now, that’s maximizing research output! Alas, I could not put my finger on the publications. Anyone remember those?

Photo by Harry Greene, from Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree.

Glowing Green Lizard Heads: Tips and Tricks of Skeletal Preparation

By Thomas Sanger

On October 5, 2011

In Research Methods

It’s October and that means Halloween is approaching. What says Halloween better than skeletons? They are everywhere this time of year! Therefore, I think that it is the right time to post a few ideas about how to prepare, label, and visualize skeletal material for studies of anole biology. (Make a few yourself and decorate your next Halloween party with them!) If you would like more detailed protocols please email me directly. If you have additional tips and tricks please add them to the comments section below.

Museum collections are filled with dried skeletal material

Dry Skeletons
Dried skeletal preparations are common in most museum collections. Sometimes this marks the fate of a damaged specimen or an animal that perished unexpectedly, but often these have been purposefully built to represent the taxonomic or morphological diversity of a group. Regardless of their origins and use, dried skeletal material makes up a significant portion of our museum collections and great effort should be taken to continue building them with well-prepared material.

Creation Science Take On Anole Genome

By Jonathan Losos

On October 4, 2011

In Anoles and Anolologists in the News

Answersingenesis.org, whose mission is to “proclaim the absolute truth and authority of the Bible with boldness,” has a Science Notes section which provides “a weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint.” Here’s what it had to say about the publication of the Anolis carolinensis genome (full article here):

“Delighted with a discovery related to human origins, researcher Jessica Alföldi noted that “Anoles have a living library of transposable elements,” bits of DNA that don’t code for anything and show up in lots of different locations. About a hundred of these were able to be matched up with counterparts on the human genome. Therefore, she concludes, “In anoles, these transposons are still hopping around, but evolution has used them for its own purposes, turning them into something functional in humans.” Pleased to have learned where humans got these non-coding genetic elements, she explains, “Sometimes you need to be at a certain distance in order to learn about how the human genome evolved.”

This comparative genetic study was certainly exhaustive, but the interpretation of the data in the shadow of the evolutionary tree of life is unjustified and unproven. Knowing that God designed all organisms to live in the same world, we should not be surprised to find that genes coding for the same proteins are needed in many, explaining the similarities across kinds. Each creature created in Creation week was fully equipped with the features it needed and the genes to code for many variations of those features. The fact that some things are similar and others are different does not show that reptiles, mammals, and birds share a common ancestor.”

Jack Frost Nipping At My Embryos

By Chad Watkins

On October 4, 2011

In Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field

My first thawed hatchling, Mr. Freeze, moments after emerging with the desire to rule the world (as soon as he got a little extra warmth from my finger)

Two weeks ago our building decided to test its emergency power generators. They assured us there should be no problems (never the case) and that electronics plugged into emergency wall sockets shouldn’t have a disruption in power while others might experience small outages that evening.

We assumed our incubator was in the emergency socket and had little concern to think that any disruption to power would cause problems. Needless to say, that was not the case. There was a surge when the power came on and according to the repair tech it fried 2 boards… however when power was restored instead of returning to its preset temp, room temp, or even remaining off, it decided to turn on and drop the temp to freezing (or below) (we are unsure of the exact temp as the display board was one of the 2 that fried). Everything inside was covered in frost and ice including the few remaining eggs I decided to spare from embryo extractions and allow to hatch for breeding next year.

Anole Theater!

By Jonathan Losos

On October 3, 2011

In Anole Art, Literature, and Humor, Education and Anoles

Tickets available at the Box Office.

Anole Genome Paper in Print and Freely Available Online

By Jonathan Losos

On October 2, 2011

In New Research

In this day of online publication of papers, the significance of the actual appearance of a journal’s latest issue, with an article right there, in ink on paper, has greatly lessened. Nonetheless, I, for one, still consider that moment to be the official publication of a paper. And in that vein, the anole genome paper officially appeared in this week’s issue of Nature. It’s freely downloadable here.

Knight Anole Eats Basilisk

By Jonathan Losos

On October 1, 2011

In Introduced Anoles, Natural History Observations

Even Neil Losin’s cellphone photos turn out spectacular!

Dead for a Day – Long Live the Lizard Man, Eric Pianka

By Martha Muñoz

On September 30, 2011

In Anoles and Anolologists in the News

Eric Pianka in the field with Varanus gouldii. Photo: Gisela Kaufmann

Eric Pianka is no stranger to bizarre conversations. As a public figure in evolutionary biology, he has engaged in numerous perplexing discussions with vociferous dissenters from the Creationist and Intelligent Design camps. On September 26, 2011 Eric Pianka received what was possibly the strangest phone call yet from David Hillis, a friend and fellow Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. Hillis informed him that rumor had it that Eric had died. Pianka learned that his obituary had been emailed to the herpetological community through the Center for North American Herpetology (CNAH), in memory of his recent passing. This is certainly not the first instance of bilocation for Eric, whose self-written obituary has been around for over two decades and available on his laboratory webpage for nearly as long. Most readers know that it is a spoof. The heading says so and the obituary ends with “Eric Pianka can be reached at eric.pianka@heaven/hell.com,” but every now and then he gets an uncomfortable email. However, this was the first time that a year of death was added to the obituary and emailed en masse to the thousands of subscribers.