Inbar Mayaan writes: As you know, Jamaica was very badly hit by Hurricane Melissa. It made landfall in the southwest part of the island and cut across through to the north central coast before continuing northward. Images and videos are circulating that just begin to show the extent of the damage, but everyone says it’s just unfathomable. Kathryn Miller, one of the excellent Jamaican students who has been on my field team and contributed meaningfully to anole research in Jamaica, was finally able to travel out to help her mother in Santa Cruz, in the parish of St.

 Prologue Nearly 1500 posts. Over 300 contributors. Worldwide readership. Since its origin 15 years ago, Anole Annals has left its mark on anole researchers, reptile enthusiasts, and people curious about why these little tree lizards enchant so many of us. (Just go ahead and admit that’s a fair question!) Many posts on this blog create engaging summaries of the newest anole research, research that spans nearly every discipline of biology.

Invasive species are a growing problem across our increasingly globalized planet. They are often adept at establishing stable population sizes very quickly, which allows them to outcompete native species for access to important ecological resources and expand their range. You’re on the Anole Annals, so you’re probably familiar with the poster child for invasive lizards, the brown anole (Anolis sagrei…

Anolis sagrei (brown anole, Figure 1) is a small species, native from Cuba, that invaded Florida around 1800. Me, I am from Brazil, and this is the story of how I made some interesting discoveries about the brown anoles during my brief invasion to the US. My journey in the herp world began by studying the South American lizard genus Tropidurus (Figure 2).

Green anoles (Anolis carolinensis), also described as the American chameleon, can change between brown and green coloration at will in a process known as physiological color change. Deciphering the adaptive purpose of this ability has captured scientists for over a century, with three major hypotheses dominating research: camouflage, social signaling, and thermoregulation. Social signaling is the most well-supported explanation in recent literature, while camouflage has lacked evidence.

Over the past several years, semi-aquatic anoles experienced a bit of viral fame for “scuba diving," a nickname for their ability to rebreathe a bubble of air over their nostrils while diving underwater. Rebreathing allows anoles to remain underwater for a long time and theoretically escape their terrestrial or aerial predators. My collaborators and I have clocked rebreathing semi-aquatic anole dive times of about 20 minutes, though -- who knows – it may even be longer!

Galveston reader A.J. Watkins writes in: I am in Galveston Texas, and I am literally in tears. Being a Port city, we have been invaded by the Cuban anoles that have obviously come in off the shipping boats. All I can say is they have caused complete devastation to SO MANY native species here on the island. Where once I had assassin bugs calore in my yard, as I never use pesticides, I also hardly ever had any issues with plant pest bugs, as the assassin bugs ( I called them my garden army) would take care of the aphids, white flies, mealy bugs, etc.

Yes, the brown (aka, festive) anole is at it again. Now it's turned up on the island of Bioko in the Gulf of Guinea. As Malanza et al. report in Herpetological Notes, this is the second introduction of the species to Africa, the first occurring in Angola.

Reader Gary Dick tells us: I encountered the hatchling pictured about 10 years ago on my patio.  Part of a small population in my specific area.  Best I can tell, it was achromic Green anole.  What do you think? A little additional info about this lizard:  it’s from a population I established  in my yard about 25 years ago north of Dallas Texas over a period of ten or so years. 

Christopher Brown on his blog Field Notes writes: "We may never acquire the gift evidenced by this anole I saw on our retaining wall last weekend: the ability to regenerate large portions of one’s own body after an accident or an encounter with a predator. I was grilling dinner when I saw it, and had to raise my glass in admiration.

Some green anoles sometimes temporarily develop a black spot behind their eyes. We had a great post on why this happens in 2011. Spoiler: it's a sign of stress. Reader Seth Whaland has provided interesting observations: In August of this year, I was on the Butler Hike & Bike Trail along Lady Bird Lake in Austin, TX. I was walking along the trail with a new point-and-shoot 35mm camera when I spotted two anoles.

Tulane University reports: Lead-resistant lizards in New Orleans could hold clues to combating lead poisoning August 20, 2025 9:00 AM Stacey Plaisance splaisance@tulane.edu

Although I have not been a prolific poster on AA, I have enjoyed contributing articles about the obscure and rarely seen anoles of the Greater Antilles and Lucayan archipelagos, such as Anolis ernestwilliamsi, Anolis fairchildi (1,2,3), and Anolis scripts (1,2,3,4,5). Here is another post in that series, focused on…

There truly is never a dull moment in South Florida, especially for those of us who love herps. South Florida is a herper’s paradise with at least 63 exotic herps recorded in the state in addition to some unique and endemic native species. In fact, South Florida is the global hotspot for non-native herps, and the world’s most invaded continental ecoregion…

Read about Steve Nielsen, the artist, here.

Color us intrigued! In the world of Anolis lizards, the dewlap—a colorful throat fan used for communication—is one of the most iconic features. It’s been flaunted, flashed, and filmed in countless studies of behavior and adaptive radiation. But for all the attention it gets, we still know surprisingly little about how this flashy ornament is inherited at the genetic level.

Anole Annals has featured a series of posts on three-legged lizards over the years (e.g., here and here). Now we need help. Some time around 2017, April Brown contributed a photo of a brown anole missing both of its forelegs. The photo was taken in Winter Park, FL. We'd like to contact April, but can't locate her. Can anyone solve the mystery?

A clip of a much longer video: Two anoles, the ubiquitous Jamaican (Graham’s, Anolis grahami), which adorns every wall in Bermuda, and the seldom seen Barbados (A. extremus), just an occasional shadow in the shade, somehow finding themselves on the desirable territory of my bedroom window. They never came to blows, but the latter was definitely the winner, the Jamaican eventually retreating with his tail between his legs (metaphorically) after 8 minutes of posturing. For more on the introduced anoles of Bermuda, see previous AA posts (here and here).

I live in Bermuda. Many years ago, my daughter and I witnessed a large male Graham’s anole devour a small female, same species. We were horrified as we had watched these particular individuals so often we’d named them…the male was Pat Rafter as he spent much of his time up by the porch ceiling light catching bugs there; the victim was Porsche, because she was always on the porch wall railing. 

I dislike textbooks. I still remember the dismay as an undergraduate student of spending all that money to buy hugely expensive textbooks. And if there was any sense of excitement on cracking the cover of a textbook for a new course, it was soon scuttled by pages and pages of dense, dry text. Now, as an educator, the cost of textbooks is still concerning but it’s their dubious pedagogical value that has led me to ditch them entirely from the courses I teach.

Peter Mudde writes: I am chairman  of Lacerta, the Dutch Herpetological society. I also am a regular contributor to the magazine Lacerta. Lacerta  recently made an "Anolis special." We are preparing a printed English version and we have an internal discussion about the matter below.  In 1962 the late Skip Lazell, a regular contributor to Anole Annals described…

A couple of my REU students from 2008 "rediscovered" their field notes and want to finish what they didn't get done that summer. We were on St. Vincent and their project involved time allotment throughout the day by the anoles (Anolis trinitatis and A. griseus) at their study site on the grounds of the botanical gardens in Kingstown. They had done a solid literature review but now need to update it.

From the pages of The Straits Times: NParks monitoring whether brown anole, greenhouse frog pose threat to native species Nparks said that it is aware of the presence of the brown anole (left) and greenhouse frog in Singapore and is monitoring the situation.PHOTO: DESMOND WEE, COURTESY OF ROBBIN TAN SINGAPORE - In many areas across Singapore, one may find small, slender lizards – sometimes displaying a yellow or reddish orange flap under their throats – if one looks intently enough.

Growing up in Florida, I was used to seeing Green Anoles, so when I moved to Virginia to start my PhD at Old Dominion University, I wasn’t surprised to see Green Anoles venturing around Norfolk. If anything, seeing the familiar anoles for the first time in the Summer of 2021 gave me a warm feeling of home. However, several months later, I began to realize that I was only seeing these anoles in one specific location.

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