Crested Anole

Fascinating facts about the Crested Anole

• In its native range the crested anole has been recorded at 2,800 ft (850 m) in the Reserva Forestal de Maricao (1988) and later at 980 m (3,220 ft) in Los Tres Picachos State Forest (2000). The species therefore occupies everything from sea level up to nearly 1 km altitude.
• The species has hopped across the Caribbean: it was introduced to Costa Rica by at least 1970, to southern Florida sometime in the 1970s, and to the Dominican Republic before 1920. It first appeared on Dominica in 2003, likely arriving around 2000, and was reported on Little Key in Sint Maarten in 2009 after a 2008 introduction. These step-wise records show human trade repeatedly moves this adaptable lizard to new islands.
• When threatened, crested anoles can autotomize their tails and grow a new one made of cartilage rather than bone; each regrown tail lacks the original vertebrae and cannot be shed again. Yet studies show urban and forest individuals have a similar average number of vertebrae in their regrown tails, meaning tail loss occurs just as often in cities as in pristine woods.
• Tropical lizards like the crested anole are especially heat-sensitive because they evolved to operate near peak performance in narrow temperature windows. Huey's 1970s data showed Puerto Rican lizards performed at 90 % of capacity even at daily temperature extremes. Since then forest temperatures have risen from 80 °F to almost 83.5 °F, and models predict another 5 °F rise within a century, putting these lizards at risk of overheating and forcing range shifts.
• Male crested anoles can grow a snout-vent length of 75 mm (3.0 in) and females up to 73 mm (2.9 in). Their total length can reach 10-20.5 cm (4-8 in), because the tail adds most of the length.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia
• Mongabay

At a glance

About the Crested Anole

In the dappled light of the forest, the crested anole dances across its domain, its iridescent skin glimmering like a shard of turquoise as it darts from branch to branch with an effortless, weightless ease. With each movement, its eponymous crest rises and falls, a vibrant, fleshy crown that signals its mood and intentions to potential rivals and suitors, a flamboyant display of territorial pride and courtship. As it pauses to survey its surroundings, its unblinking gaze seems to hold a quiet, reptilian intelligence, a testament to the ancient, unyielding spirit that animates this tiny, jewel-like creature.

Crested Anole photographed on Feravox

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