Anolis cristatellus, the Puerto Rican crested anole;
Miami-Dade county, Florida (16 March 2018).
Series: Spring Break 2018.
They may be a dime a dozen in Miami-Dade county these days, but I’m always happy to find each and every Puerto Rican crested anole (Anolis cristatellus) I manage to come across. Though not as ubiquitously successful throughout the Floridian peninsula as the Cuban brown anole (Anolis sagrei), the crested anole has done quite well in south Florida. This individual was sporting a bit of goiter on its lower jaw — something I see fairly frequently in some of the urban populations of crested anoles in the Coral Gables area. I’m not sure what causes these spikes in goiter-like activity. I wonder if may be stress-related? There’s plenty of competition for these crested anoles from above and below — a medley of non-native lizards each trying to scratch out a living amongst and often against each other in the tangles of the south Florida postmodernistic ecology.