The Anoles of (Eastern) Jamaica

As I do like reading about field trips or merely observations from vacations where anoles have been spotted, I thought I would share my observations made in Jamaica.  Following the disastrous effects of the Hurricane season in 2025, I'd like to raise some awareness for this beautiful island. In Mach 2024 I was fortunate to travel to Port Antonio, Jamaica for a 7 day field trip with anoles being the main target.

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Mating Behavior of the Oaxacan Oak Anole

Read all about it!  Abstract: Courtship and mating events in Mexican Anolis species have been reported mainly in captive conditions. Herein, we report a field observation of the mating behaviour of A. quercorum on a coffee plant, in the Sierra Madre del Sur, Oaxaca. Neck biting by the male, positioning on the female, head waving, copulation/intromission, as well as dislodging and retreat behaviours were observed in the wild.

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Do Green Anoles Turn Brown when Mating and Does It Show They’re Happy?

Long time AA stalwart Pat Shipman writes: Just a random observation of anoles in my North Carolina. I believe all to be A. carolinensis as might be expected. For the first time since I moved here, I came upon two individuals mating. They had turned chocolate brown instead of their usual leaf green. I didn't disturb them & couldn't get to my camera fast enough to take a photo.

anoleannals.org

Review of Poe’s Guide to the Anolis Lizards (Anoles) of Mainland Central and South America

I received a copy of Steven Poe’s "guide" to the mainland anoles. The book includes summaries of 240 species, copious photographs, range maps, and chapters on anole biology and identifying and catching anoles. The 400+ page tome is not entirely devoid of value. Many of the photos are excellent, the maps are useful, and the book's thickness encourages functionality as a step stool (although its heft precludes frequent usage in this capacity).

anoleannals.org

Blue Shed Skin of Green Anole

Reader Gary Owen Dick writes from xxx: Took some pics the other day of a female green anole shedding.  What intrigues me is the blue coloration on the inner side of the backlit pieces of the loose stratum corneum seen at these angles.  Is this a structural thing, or a camera illusion?

anoleannals.org

Invaders Don’t Come Alone: Rethinking Biological Invasions Through Co-invasion

Species invasions are usually studied one at a time, but ecosystems rarely have that luxury. This project began with a simple frustration: while reading about invasive predators, invasive competitors, and pollinator declines, I kept noticing that these processes were usually treated separately—even though accelerating global trade is increasingly causing ecosystems to experience multiple invasions simultaneously. This is especially true on islands, which are highly connected through the constant movement of goods and supplies.

anoleannals.org

Why Green Anoles Change Color by Whit Gibbons

From the pages of  Tuscaloosa News: You've likely seen this common lizard. Why it changes color | ECOVIEWS Whit Gibbons Contributor May 1, 2026, 3:45 a.m. CT One of the most commonly seen lizards in the Southern states is the green anole, also known as the North American green anole or Carolina anole. (Its scientific name is Anolis carolinensis.) Although more than 400 species of anoles are known to science, the green anole is the only one native to the United States.

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Want to Know More about Animal Behaviour, in Spanish?

For those of you fascinated by animal behaviour—of your pets, backyard visitors and other wildlife, or perhaps anoles in particular—the non-fiction graphic novel Understanding Animal Behaviour is for you. And it’s free—all 175 pages of it. Learn everything there is to know about the science of animal behaviour. Find out more about how Anolis lizards have cracked open the way natural selection works in nature.

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Anole T-Shirts

New model organism t-shirts available from the Society for Developmental Biology.

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Are Red Chili Pepper Anoles a Real Thing?

AA reader Steve Hopman writes: My question is on genetics of the "Red Chili Pepper" anole being sold on Underground Reptiles. Are they A. sagrei or a cross with another species? How is the red transferred to offspring? Dominant or recessive trait or ?.

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Spring Time and the Green Anoles Are Back in Georgia

From the pages of Vanguard, the student newspaper of the University of North Georgia: The Green Anole is Back in Georgia Riley Hansen, Staff Writer • April 9, 2026 With spring weather on the rise, green anoles, a small lizard species native to the southern portion of the United States, are returning to Georgia in large numbers.  Anolis Carolinensis…

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Anole Chocolate!

Mashpi Chocolate sustainability farms chocolate to help preserve nature in Ecuador. And anoles are doing their part. As they say on their website: "All the ingredients we use in Mashpi Chocolate are grown in an agroecological and regenerative way, next to cocoa trees and within edible forests....We created this chocolate to preserve a native forest reserve, restore degraded areas and generate opportunities in the magical territory of the Andean Chocó....The beauty of coffee is that it is planted under the shade of other trees, providing a habitat for many other species.

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Dinámicas Evolutivas y de Diversificación en Regiones Montañosas Tropicales

Al igual que cuando era estudiante de pregrado, me demoré un buen rato en decidir qué hacer para mi tesis doctoral, ya que tuve que replantear la mayor parte debido a la pandemia de COVID. Meses antes de mi propuesta, encontré un artículo muy interesante de alguien de mi ciudad natal (Cali), Julián A. Velasco (Velasco et al. 2020…

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Dominance of Anolis under Imminent Threat — from Geckos!

Anolis has long enjoyed being the most speciose genus of reptiles with currently 435 described species (unless you subscribe to the generic split crowd supporting Dactyloa and such, of course). There was not even a close contender. That is changing rapidly with the unabated description of new species of Cyrtodactylus -- more than 300 new species since 2000 and more than 100 since 2020!

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The History of Anole Annals According to ChatGPT Chat

This all started with an innocent query: how long has Anole Annals been around? This led to a series of questions answered--for the most part accurately--by chapgpt. Unfortunately, the links didn't copy, but if you want to go to the posts mentioned below, look at Chatgpt's transcript of our conversation. So with that, here goes: when did Anole Annals debut?

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Diversification and Evolutionary Dynamics in Tropical Montane Regions

Much like when I was an undergrad, I found myself trying to decide what to do for my PhD thesis, as I had to change or rethink most of it after COVID happened. Months before my proposal, I came across a really cool paper by someone from my hometown (Cali), Julian A. Velasco (Velasco et al. 2020). In this paper, Velasco and colleagues addressed two questions: first, whether common ideas about heat and food availability explain why animal sizes vary geographically; and second, how fast those sizes changed as the planet cooled over the last 66 million years.

anoleannals.org

What Grenadian Anoles Revealed about How Animals Establish Territories

There are a lot of classic studies on anoles. Some of the most groundbreaking started from a simple observation and someone’s curiosity. Judy Stamps seems to have had lots of these “huh…” moments. Her studies on anole behavior are extensive, and there are many classics to pick from. Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 8 in the non-fiction graphic novel Understanding Animal Behaviour…

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Knight Anoles Spreading through Florida–Will They Get to Georgia?

from the Wildlife Society: Florida towns facilitate spread of knight anoles March 2, 2026 News, Wildlife News by Joshua Rapp Learn Giant Cuban anoles have found footholds in habitats across Florida thanks to expanding human development over the past decades. But it’s unclear whether the reptiles can push into Georgia or if the introduced reptiles may be near the edge of their potential range.

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It’s Not What You Eat, It’s Where You Deplete: Resource Competition between Introduced Lizards in Hawaii

Left: gold dust day gecko handling a spider in the vegetation. Center: green anole handling a moth. Right: brown anole surveying the ground. Or, "Prey depletion by a predator guild suggests spatial differences in competitive ability, but not prey partitioning, consistent with functional trade‐offs." Anole biologists may take for granted that anoles compete. We have plenty of evidence, after all, for the…

anoleannals.org

Ecuador’s Eccentric Anoles

Ecuador is one of the most biodiversity-rich and unique locations in the world - especially for herps. Currently, there are 207 species of lizards there, 41 of which are some of the most spectacular anole species around (Arteaga 2025). As a herp wildlife photographer and an employee of the Khamai Foundation, I have had many chances to encounter and document some of these incredible animals.

anoleannals.org

Mythic Peruvian Anoles Rediscovered

The rediscovery of Anolis laevis is one of those stories that seem written to remind us why biological exploration remains indispensable. Described in 1876 from a single specimen, holotype ANSP 11368, and then lost to science for a century and a half, this small anole with a strange proboscis on its snout became a myth of the montane forests of northeastern Peru.

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Peruvian Islands Foster Rapid Morphological Evolution in Introduced Lizards

As well exemplified by a significant fraction of anole research, islands can act as natural laboratories of evolution. With limited space, fewer predators, simplified communities, and isolation from the mainland, islands often impose strong and distinctive selective pressures relative to continental habitats. However, although anoles provide some of the most famous examples of evolution on islands, insularity can exert its effects on different types of organisms.

anoleannals.org

From Tiny Spines to Sticky Toes: What Cyrtodactylus Geckos Can Tell Us about the Evolution of Stickiness in Lizards

Like anoles, geckos are famous for their adhesive toepads, enabling astonishing climbing abilities. Since adhesive toepads evolved independently in geckos and anoles, these two rather distantly related lizard clades have become the poster-children of convergent evolution in climbing. But, astonishingly, how such a complex system actually evolves has until recently garnered little attention. And while anoles have long been celebrated for their sticky pads, the literature tends to treat the spectacular adhesive system in a binary fashion as either being present (full pads) or absent (pad‑less) in geckos– despite the fact that earlier research already indicated that this might not be the case.

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Knight Anole Meets Cat

Happy ending: they both lived to see another day thanks to the screen between them! Thanks to Miriam Lipsky for the photo from Miami.

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Want to Know More about Anole Behaviour?

JUST PUBLISHED: Understanding Animal Behaviour is a non-fiction graphic novel featuring anoles and other lizards. This isn’t a kid's book or comic. It is written for adult readers interested in understanding why animals do what they do and how researchers go about studying behaviour. And its FREE. Here’s a taster from Chapter 4 on the challenges anoles face when trying to advertise territory ownership in natural environments.

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Breaking News: Green Anole Savagely Bites Stephen Colbert

Ok, not actually breaking news--occurred almost eight years ago, but somehow word never reached Anole Annals. People magazine tells the story: Published on April 21, 2018 12:55PM EDT Nearly three years after taking over The Late Show from David Letterman, Stephen Colbert finally welcomed the first animal expert back on the CBS program, Friday. But… he might regret that decision.

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Invasive Brown Anoles More Aggressive to Native Greens at Higher Temperatures

Tulane University reports: Study: Invasive lizards’ tempers flare with the heat Stacey Plaisance splaisance@tulane.edu 

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Hurricanes as a Source of Episodic Natural Selection on Lizards

from the pages of Rhody Today: URI’s Jason Kolbe studying hurricanes as a source of episodic natural selection Storm study shows adaptive selection in southeast lizards A new study led by URI’s Jason Kolbe examines adaptive selection in Anolis lizards in the southeastern U.S. (Photos / J. Kolbe) KINGSTON, R.I. – Dec. 11, 2025 – How do intermittent events like hurricanes impact natural selection?

anoleannals.org

How Lizards Use Skin Color to Control Their Body Temperature

We’ve long known that some lizards change color for camouflage or communication, but our new research reveals their skin may also act as a dynamic thermal regulator. Our study published in Animals explores how the green anole (Anolis carolinensis) adjusts its skin color and reflectance in response to short-term temperature changes, offering fresh insights into how ectotherms adapt to their environment.

anoleannals.org

Where Do Green Anoles Go to Sleep? Night Life in the Ogasawara Islands

Sleep is one of the most fundamental states for animals, including humans and wildlife. When people travel to unfamiliar places, one of their first concerns is often where they will sleep that night — at least it is for me. Lizards may face a similar challenge. Like other diurnal Anolis lizard species, green anoles (Anolis carolinensis) are active during the day and rest at night.

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