Red throat anole
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Red throat anole ( Anolis carolinensis ) |
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| Voigt , 1832 |
The red throated anole ( Anolis carolinensis ), also known as the American chameleon or green anole , is a lizard of the genus Anolis native to the subtropical deciduous forests of the USA and the Caribbean .
description
Like most of the lizards in its family, the red throat ankle shows a pronounced sexual dimorphism . Adult male red throat anoles measure about 20 cm with a head-trunk length of 8 cm, the females remain somewhat smaller with a maximum of 18 cm and a head-trunk length of 7 cm. They have a slim build with a pointed head, which is very wiry, especially in the 3–4 cm smaller female. Red throat anoles can move their eyes independently of each other and change color from green to brown, which also earned them the name American chameleon . The body color changes depending on mood and activity, although it should be noted that the females are often darker than the males. When the animals are sunbathing, for example, they turn darker in color to absorb more heat. The throat pouch of this species is eponymous red. The popular belief that females do not have this throat pouch is wrong. However, it is much smaller than that of the male and is almost never used. The throat pouch is stretched by the hyoid apparatus in both males and females . The average age is given as 3 to 5 years, but the animals can also live up to 8 years.
Occurrence
The red throat anole originally comes from the southeastern USA. There it is native from Florida to the west via Alabama and Louisiana to Texas, from there to southern Oklahoma. From Oklahoma east over Arkansas and Tennessee to southern Virginia. Genetic studies on the red throat anole indicate that its ancestor lived in Cuba and reached the southeastern United States (Florida) by sea.
Another population has been identified in Hawaii, but this is due to human displacements. There, due to the lack of natural predators (predators), they spread so strongly that they have become a threat to native animals.
Outside the United States, they colonize large parts of northeast Mexico and various islands in the Caribbean. They must have reached the latter through introduction by humans.
In its habitat the red throated anole lives in deciduous forests and bushes. His claws and sticky feet (see also Anolis ) make the kind at an excellent climbers.
Way of life
The diurnal red throat anoles live in small groups with a clear hierarchy. These animals, which complete a two-month hibernation in winter , are sun worshipers who like to sunbathe often. They turn dark brown in the process. They are shy escape animals that are pursued by many hunters ( birds of prey , cats, etc.). However, when there is no way out, they try to intimidate the enemy with the throat pouch. This is one possible situation where the female uses the throat pouch. But the throat pouch is also inflated during courtship. The males seldom evade a fight with other conspecifics. Red throated anoles are very territorial , the first consequence of the intrusion is probably the threatening gesture of the territory owner. He puts up his throat pouch and sometimes nods his head. If the weaker male does not flee, or the opponents are equally strong, a fight ensues. The first attack comes from the district owner.
There are two morphs of the males: lighter built males, who rely primarily on speed and threatening gestures with the throat pouch in fights, and heavier built males, who mainly rely on their stronger bite.
The consequences are varied, scratches and bites are always present. Broken bones and dislocated joints are less common.
nutrition
Red-throated anoles actively chase after smaller arthropods such as crickets , grasshoppers , flies , maggots , mealworms and moths. Moreover, are spiders eaten. Basically every insect that fits in the mouth will be eaten. Red-throated anoles are stalkers. If he recognizes a prey with his eyes, he waits until it is within range and then preyed on it in one go. Often it catches the prey from the side, but then has to turn the prey around to be able to devour it, because anoles have no teeth, only small hooks with which they hold the prey. They usually eat larger prey upside down.
Reproduction
After the hibernation, the breeding season of the red throat anole begins. The courtship ritual consists of setting up the throat pouch and a push-up-like movement. When mating, the male begins to bite the neck to bring the female into the mating position. The male then puts a leg on the female's body and begins mating. Copulation takes a few minutes. After a gestation of 2–3 weeks, 1 or 2 soft-shelled eggs are buried, from which the young hatch after 1–2 months, which can also father young animals after about 7 months.
Terrariums
The red throat anole is a very popular animal for keeping in terrariums worldwide . Compared to other reptile species, it is very easy to keep and can cope with a wide variety of habitats. In addition, when kept well, the red throat anole shows a very wide range of natural behaviors and is easy to breed. Nevertheless, wild-caught animals are often offered in pet stores, which is rather questionable due to the long transport routes.
Like all reptiles from the subtropical or tropical region, the red throat anole needs a relative humidity of 50 to 65% during the day. In the evening, the holder should spray manually, as the nightly lowering of the room temperature increases the humidity to the desired 80 to 90%. In addition, the red throated anole licks the water droplets from the leaves and the glass panes to absorb water. Temperatures should be around 23 ° C in winter and between 28 and 30 ° C in summer. It should be warmer (approx. 28–35 ° C) under the heat lamp so that the cold-blooded animals can warm up there.
In addition to the light, there must also be a UV-A and UV-B source in the terrarium. Modern HQI lamps (can only be operated with a ballast) not only provide beautiful and natural light, but also UV radiation in healthy doses, which is essential for the formation of vitamin D.
Biological research
The red throated anole is a model organism in biology and is the first reptile whose genome has been completely sequenced. But the red throat anole is also a model organism in evolutionary biology. Losos et al. gain many new insights into the phenomena of adaptive radiation , island evolution, biological invasion as well as mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity and niche evolution . It is also known that the epiphysis of the red throat anolis remains functional for up to 10 days in culture solution after surgical removal. This enables biologists to measure the influence of light or temperature on the hormone secretion of the epiphysis without any time delay or falsification of the results due to other external influences.
swell
- Jens Rauh: The red throat anole. Anolis carolinensis. Natur-Tier-Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-937285-27-X .
literature
- W. Denzer: The herpetofauna of South Florida. Part 2: The disjoint populations of tropical reptiles and amphibians in southern Florida. In: Sauria. Vol. 8, No. 3, 1986, ISSN 0176-9391 , pp. 23-26.
- Steven G. George: Anolis carolinensis (green anole). USA: Louisiana. In: Herpetological Review. Vol. 25, No. 4, 1994, ISSN 0018-084X , p. 164.
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard E. Glor, Jonathan B. Losos, Allan Larson: Out of Cuba: overwater dispersal and speciation among lizards in the Anolis carolinensis subgroup. In: Molecular Ecology. Vol. 14, No. 8, 2005, pp. 2419-2432, doi : 10.1111 / j.1365-294X.2005.02550.x .
- ↑ Simon P. Lailvaux, Anthony Herrel, Bieke VanHooydonck, Jay J. Meyers, Duncan J. Irschick: Performance capacity, fighting tactics and the evolution of life-stage male morphs in the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis). In: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. Vol. 271, No. 1556, 2004, pp. 2501-2508, doi : 10.1098 / rspb.2004.2891 .
- ↑ Broad Institute ( Memento of the original from October 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Jonathan B. Losos: Detective work in the West Indies: integrating historical and experimental approaches to study island lizard evolution. In: BioScience. Vol. 57, No. 7, 2007, pp. 585-597, doi : 10.1641 / B570712 .
- ↑ Michael Menaker, Sherry Wisner: Temperature-compensated circadian clock in the pineal of Anolis. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . Vol. 80, No. 19, 1983, pp. 6119-6121, PMID 6577470 , digitized version (PDF; 527.87 kB) .
Web links
- Red throat anole on Discover Life
- Article about Anolis carolinensis on Saumfinger.de
- Reptilienland.com Information about Anolis carolinensis - with breeder directory
- "Breeding Green Anoles (Anolis Carolinensis) in Captivity" English
- Anolis carolinensis in The Reptile Database
- Anolis carolinensis inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: Frost, DR & Hammerson, GA, 2007. Retrieved January 30, 2014.