Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Carribean Anole Blues #1

The cool thing about islands and island chains is weird endemic variations. Take the Galapagos. You start out with one generic finch and one generic largish tortoise (or possibly two). Spread them out over a few different islands, leave 'em for a while and you end up with a load of slightly different species and as always its the little differences that makes life interesting. But this doesn't just work for far flung islands like the galapagos and exotic creatures like flightless rails or super-tortoises. Take America's favourite island playgrounds; the Carribean. It has so many variations on the standard Anole that it needs a database.

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The pics above and below are both the same lizard which I think may be Anolis krugi, a bush anole. I actually saw at least 3 and possibly 5 species of lizard in the same garden. Since anoles often have sexual dimorphism as well this is where things get confusing.

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More anoles and hopefully more accurate id's to come.

1 comment:

tai haku said...

It wasn't krugi - it was another cristellatus (but a funny looking one at that).