The end of May is creeping up on me and I’m short on posts this month. Do not want to break my multi-year streak of hitting my monthly blog quota, so look for several more posts to come bursting your way this week. The good news is Ron and I were able to get a break from all the ordeals with our mother’s passing. Did some birding at Montrose Beach (Chicago) and several places around Chain ‘O Lakes State Park. Extremely productive for our “Average Year” tallies and even managed to set a record for our one day unique species count (62). A summary of that effort will be coming as soon as I can process the 110 gigs of images from the two day haul. As for today, thought I would continue with the “lime green” theme from the last post.
Surprise, not a bird ha! This happens to be a Lizard we discovered last year while Ron and I were birding Dauphin Island. Hmmm, discovered might not be the best choice of birds – more like the Lizard that “revealed” itself to me. Unlike my wife, I am quite fond of the members in the reptile family. Only variable is how close I am willing to get to a particular specimen. Definitely not one to go running head first into a door frame if the slithering kind pops out of a grill cover (link here). If you are wondering, Lizards do not get a pass from Linda either – as she puts it “just Snakes with legs”. So glad she wasn’t with us when this walking neon sign came out to greet us.
Hit the jump to see more of our lime colored friend.
At first notice, I was very concern about how long it was – for a rather small Lizard it just kept squeezing out of the surrounding vegetation like an endless tube of green toothpaste with turquoise eyes. Finally saw its back feet and then stood there with my mouth open waiting for the end of its tail to be fully exposed. Ended up halfway out in the road just trying to fit it all into The Beast’s field of view. One of the few times at Dauphin I could have used a wider angle glass! Now that the creature was fully exposed and the threat assessment was re-evaluated down to nil, I was able to comfortably move in and get a better look at this brightly colored tree hugger.
After a bit of research, determined this Lizard is a Green Anole. Very Gecko-like if you ask me – wonder how it would do selling insurance? Learned that they can grow to around eight inches long from nose to tip of tail (trust me, they look longer in person). The tail is actually 70 percent of their length. I can also confidently identify this as a male Anole. According to a reference on the web, the females have a white stripe down their back. Nope, no line here.
According to Wiki, these Green Anoles can see a wide range of UV spectrum. Guessing they would go absolutely crazy with all the UV light we pour down on the haunted trail every year (link here). Get this, they also say the Anole can change its color (ranging from a brown shade) “depending on its mood, level of stress, activity level and as a social signal” – read that as turn bright green right before attacking Ron hehehe. Note, unlike Geckos, they don’t change their hues just to blend into surroundings. Is anyone else getting the distinct feeling they know a lot about how this creature thinks and it doesn’t even speak English…just saying.
Anyway, just wanted to quickly introduce you to another find while we were at Dauphin. I am bracing for when Linda reads this post…we may not be going back to that island after all!!
Wildlife Intrigued 
I see you are still seeing green. That Anole looks a little thin. It could be a bit anorexic. Hard to say. I remember seeing a lot of Green Anoles in Texas. Excellent photos of the darling little lizard.
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Envious of all your Owl shots ha! I checked out a but of shots on the internet and I think you are correct – a few of them I could see the ribs, but a majority looked a lot more … shall we say plump. Could be that she was stretching so far down the tree, but Lizards are a bit of an enigma to me – I don’t have to worry about birds shifting colors beyond the breed vs nonbreed plumage. These things look in the mirror in the morning and go “hey, think I’ll be brown today”. Appreciate you dropping in Timothy.
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Fantastic colour!
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He practically glowed ha. For some reason your comment got scooped up by my spam filter. Hopefully that is correct now and apologies for the late response. Appreciate you pointing your browser my way Luisella.
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What a beauty and such a nice color. Nice captures !
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Thank you Rudi – it was a pleasant break from the tons of bird pictures were were taking during that fallout. Also never seen one of these before which made it even more exciting. Appreciate you coming by Rudi.
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Agree with Tim, I can plainly see ribs under the neon green skin. Maybe it was eyeing you or Ron to fatten up a bit. Are you sure it didn’t have a cockney accent?
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Yep, as I mentioned to Tim, the majority of reference shots I saw all had a bit more skin on the bones. Having never seen one before, not sure if that was due to the migrating birds woofing down all the food options or maybe it was just doing some tree yoga and skin was stretched tighter than usual. There did seem to be a bit of Cockney accent as it kept leaving the g’s off its words… weird hehehe. Have a great weekend..looks like your big trip is just around the corner.
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Great little star for your post! We have green anoles in our gardens down here along the Gulf Coast, so they are frequent subjects on the occasions when birds fail to drop in. Their handsome faces and comical behaviors are amusing. I was reading up on your question of ribs showing, and found a note that they store most of their body fat in their tail, not along their body, and seeing their ribs is common. Mother Nature came up with a new trick!
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Thanks for the assist on the body fat! The images on the web were not conclusive enough and most of the sites I found on them were focused on how to get rid of them vs give me any details about their behavior etc. Based on the fact they are 70% tail, they definitely have plenty of space to store their fat… don’t let the super model ladies find out or they’ll be asking to have a tail added ha. Usually when the the birds dry up I go hunting for Butterflies and Dragonflies. Based on how fun it was to see this Lizard I am definitely gong to give them more attention now. As always, appreciate you taking the time to drop in – finally got caught up on your posts while I was away.
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Ooooh! Love that color.
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Good thing there wasn’t any Bulls in the area ha! Like Luisella’s comment above, this comment ended up getting scooped up in my spam filter as well. Absolutely no idea why, but hopefully it is corrected on my end again. Apologies for the delayed response as a result. Take care!
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Truly lovely photos of this stunning green anole, Brian. And I’m glad you were able to spot some birds in the midst of the family ordeals, there’s nothing like a spot of nature to cheer us up. Sorry to hear about your mother.
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Thank you Jet! I’m not up on my Lizards so this one was quite the experience. I’m usually so focused on looking up for birds I miss all the wonders in the lower portions of the vegetation. Appreciate the support regarding our Mother. Definitely a stressful 6 weeks as it all played out – you are definitely correct, nature has an amazing way of healing and comforting. I’ll always remember her every time I see her favorite bird, the Northern Cardinal, while out in the field. Have a great weekend and hope you are enjoying your new residence!
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Bright green tree hugger! A winner in my book.😊
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… as long as my wife doesn’t see, it’s all good hehehe. She’s been known to tear my clothes scrambling up on my back when one happens to do something stupid like reveal themselves to her. One of these times I am going to have an embarrassing story to relay to the doctors in the emergency room if I don’t keep a better eye out for these critters and steer them out of her sightline.
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I have never seen a green lizard in real life. He/she is so beautiful and colorful. And it seems that he specially paused for you that you could take these unique photos. I saw only once a lizard ( not a green one) while hiking in the mountains. He blended very well with his environment. Today I learned something interesting about green lizards. Thank you!
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You are quite welcome! There are so many Lizard family members out there and I’ve only been lucky enough to photograph a few of them so far – they are generally pretty fast, tend to hang out under the cover of brush and …well, most of the time I’m having to try to calm my wife down from hysterics when we spot one hehehe. Keep in mind this particular Lizard can morph into a brownish one whenever it feels like it, so you might have already seen it.
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These Anole become a constant companion once it gets warm in the Lowcountry (South Carolina coast). Since we basically live with them when things are slow, or too hot, to hit the boonies you can always lurk around in the yard and photograph mini gators LOL. Nice shots, glad we found each others sites.
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Greetings Ted, welcome to Intrigued! This is my first encounter with these green “mini gators”. Assuming they are harmless – just startled me when it crawled out of the vegetation… and the slow roll of the reveal with such a long tail ha. I’ll have to keep an eye out for these next time I’m in SC. Enjoying your site and thanks for dropping in!
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