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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the June 14, 2018 Newsletter issued from Rancho Regenesis in the woods ±4kms west of Ek Balam Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO
SILKY ANOLE ON THE PORCH
While I sat on the hut's porch reading, movement to my right caught my eye. It was the little whitish anole that often comes sits with me, looking around for unalert flies. I'd been assuming that my visitor was an especially pale form of the Brown Anole that had been so common in my hut back at Chichén Itzá, but then something unexpected happened, shown below:
That extended yellow dewlap with an orangish blotch was something I hadn't seen on Brown Anoles. A little delving into the matter turned up the information that such dewlaps might appear on a female Silky Anole, or maybe an immature male one. Silky Anoles sometimes are called Blue-spot Anoles, but the Reptile-Database web page for the species calls them Silkies, so I'll go with that. They are ANOLIS SERICEUS. The dewlaps on mature males may have conspicuous blue blotches in their centers
This species has been introduced to science under a remarkable number of names, so it's taxonomy has been a hard one to work out, and probably isn't settled yet. As the species is understood now, it's distributed from the central Mexican Gulf lowlands south through Central America into Costa Rica.
In Jonathan Campbell's Amphibians and Reptiles of Northern Guatemala, the Yucatán, and Belize I read that Anolis sericeus is abundant in many habitats, usually found on low bushes and shrubs, sitting vertically on tree trunks, or in leaf litter on the ground. Females deposit just one egg in several clutches established over the course of the rainy season.
from the June 28, 2018 Newsletter issued from Rancho Regenesis in the woods ±4kms west of Ek Balam Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO
SILKY ANOLE VARIATION
This week either the same individual pictured above, who'd changed colors, or a different one turned up. It's important to be familiar with the variations, so below you can see two views of a different look, the first one showing the visitor perched on the near-vertical side of the deep pit below the porch:
Jonathan Campbell in his Amphibians and Reptiles of Northern Guatemala, the Yucatán, and Belize speaks of some individuals showing a "pale dorsolateral line extending from behind the eye onto the body," which seems to appear in that picture. Also he mentions indistinct spotting over the body, and that the labial area (lips) and venter (bottom) are whitish or cream, shown below in the second view:
from the May 26, 2007 Newsletter issued from Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, QUERÉTARO, MÉXICO
ANOLE AT DAWN
Exactly when it had grown light enough to see the vegetation around my tent a slender lizard darted onto a bush stem running horizontally at arm distance right before my eyes. The critter froze there for several minutes, appearing to look at me as if trying to understand what I was doing sitting cross-legged in a tent's door at daybreak. Happily, I was able to get to the camera and snap the picture at the top of the page.
In the dim early-morning light I wasn't able to make much out about the lizard, but once the picture had been downloaded onto my computer's screen it was clear that I'd been visited by a Silky Anole, ANOLIS SERICEUS, occasionally placed into the genus Norops. This is the closest species we have here to the Green Anoles, or "Chameleons," who used to hang on my trailer walls back in Mississippi.
Like my Green Anoles, adult Silky Anoles possess colorful dewlaps they can unfurl beneath their chins when displaying. My twig-sitter was hiding his dewlap but you can see another one with his fan unfurled at http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/drongo/177/sericeuspvb05002.JPG.
from the August 2, 2018 Newsletter issued from Rancho Regenesis in the woods ±4kms west of Ek Balam Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO
A WHITISH SILKY ANOLE
This week on a Manila Palm trunk in the garden another whitish Silky turned up, shown below:
He didn't want to move at all, so a nice head close-up was possible, shown below:
That darkish bar extending across the top of the head from eye to eye seems to be fairly constant within the species, even as other features come and go. In pale individuals, the short lines radiating from around the eyes also seem consistently to turn up.
from the October 12, 2018 Newsletter with notes from a recent camping trip in Chiapas, MÉXICO
SILKY ANOLE FANNING HIS DEWLAP
On October 5, during my recent camping trip in Chiapas, southern Mexico, on the cement floor of a rest shelter along the fine walkway/bike-path extending from the town of Palenque to the Palenque ruins, in mid afternoon an anole turned up with a broken-off tail beginning to sprout a new one. The little lizard was so plain that I wasn't sure I could ever identify him with certainty -- until he fanned out his orange dewlap, as shown below:
That's just like the dewlap on our frequently met Silky Anole, and that rest shelter was just the kind of place the species is known to frequent. Each time we meet a Silky Anole he looks a little different. Gradually we're gathering a nice collection of his many disguises.
