When different is not better
December 27, 2005
The anole lizard's fan or dewlap plays an important role in species recognition, territorial defense and courtship.
The anole lizard's fan or dewlap plays an important role in species recognition, territorial defense and courtship. Male slender anoles (Norops limifrons) exhibit orange dewlaps in Gamboa populations, white with an orange spot on BCI, and in Soberania there are both white and orange populations and even mixed populations where white and orange males occur side by side.
An hypothesis for differences between populations is that some aspect of sexual selection, such as female choice or male competition may contribute to maintain them.
To test this hypothesis, STRI postdoctoral fellow Jessica Stapley from Australia, conducts experiments to determine if dewlap colors change during the life of the lizard, if females care about color or if these influence male contest success.
Her preliminary results suggest that dewlap colors are fixed from an early age; that female preference is influenced by her experience, preferring males of the same dewlap color as the familiar male overlapping her territory, thus helping to maintain one dewlap color in a population. “If a white male moves into an orange population, he is unlikely to attract females, and may suffer a reduced reproductive success” concludes Stapley.
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