Day 104#: Graham's Anole
Today's animal of the day is Graham's Anole (Anolis grahami)!
Photo credit: Jannes Pockele
Also known as the Jamaican turquoise anole, this species of lizard is named after James Duncan Graham, who founded the United States' Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1838. This actually really confused me at first, since based on his job description it doesn't seem like he had any connections to reptiles. However, apparently, while he was surveying land, he'd often collect specimens both for his personal collections and to give to biologists for them to study. There are actually two species of snakes also named after him, Graham's crayfish snake (Regina grahamii) and the Eastern patch-nosed snake (Salvadora grahamiae). The type specimen for Graham's crayfish snake was actually collected by Graham himself, but it seems like both the anole and patch-nose snake were just named in his honor and weren't discovered by him. Sorry for the tangent, I just got curious as to why this lizard was named after an army surveyor, and it sent me down a research rabbit hole.
Photo credit: Jannes Pockele
Graham's anole is native to the island of Jamaica, though it has also been introduced to parts of Bermuda as well. Males typically grow to around 6 inches long and are a bright aquamarine color with blue legs and an orange dewlap. Meanwhile, females tend to only grow to about 3 inches long and are usually more muted in color. Like many other lizards, they possess the ability to change the color of their skin using a combination of special pigment cells called chromatophores and melanocytes. This allows them to better blend into their environment when hiding from predators and communicate with other members of their species to express their moods. For example, when they are stressed, they will turn either a very dark brown or black color. They also have the ability to only change the color of half of their body at a time, which comes in handy when part of their body is in shadow and the other is in the light.
Photo credit: James Saunders
These lizards prefer to live in the higher branches of the forest canopy, and are excellent climbers! While these ambush predators usually feed on whatever insects they can fit into their mouths, they've also been observed feeding on flower nectar on occasion. Interestingly, this species fills a very similar niche to that of the Jamaican gray anole; however, while competition between the two species does exist, they try to avoid conflict by living at different elevations. Graham's anoles stay high up in the trees, while the Jamaican gray anoles live lower down towards the base of the trunk. This allows both species to co-exist relatively peacefully and without driving each other to extinction. This is similar to how, in Florida, the native green anoles are adapting to the invasive brown anoles. As stated before, this species was introduced to the island of Bermuda in 1905 by a botanist who wanted to use the lizards to control the fruit fly population. Sadly, these invasive anoles are now threatening the Bermuda rock skink, which was previously the only species of lizard native to Bermuda.
