Talk:Anolis carolinensis

Cluttered?
There are several photographs of anoles in this article. They are good contributions, but I wonder if the photos could be organized in a better way? As it is now, it seems a bit cluttered/visually unappealing. Behavio (talk) 17:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I contributed a picture which was later removed. I think it is relevant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Male_anoles_fighting_img1824.jpg It shows males fighting (in answer to the agressiveness question below) but if the images are already cluttered I don't want to increase the problem or get in an edit war...) Seadevil (talk) 21:00, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed, the page is cluttered. WP:GALLERY I will tag the page for cleanup and remove some of the redundant photos. Down time (talk) 17:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

A happy lizard turns green?
I caught a lizard like this yesterday, the pictures are here in case I am wrong about the species: http://imagesofaustin.blogspot.com/. But I noticed that it was brown at first and then after I caught it, it turned green. I suspect that getting caught caused it stress so this experience is the exact opposite of what it says in this article. I was wondering if someone could please cite that in general "happy" lizards turn green and "unhappy" ones turn brown. I don't think it was happy to get caught by me. I will admit it is possible I ran into a special case, but I doubt it. I guess I will come back in a day or two to delete this if no one has posted a citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.227.222.209 (talk) 03:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not lizard specialist, but I would explain it that way: If a lizard experiences ongoing stress (e.g. because of inappropiate conditions) it doesn't turn green anymore. As far as I concern the loss of the changing ability is just one of many signs a lizard suffers stress. I a terrarium they change colour all the time, even when they are NOT in stress or not under a light spot. --Protostomia (talk) 14:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

All references to the green anole using its brown color to show that it is stressed have been removed. After an extensive search, no reliable source was found to substantiate that claim. – Paine ( Climax !) 03:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Current Range?
Can someone please add a current range map for the green anole. I live in southern Cincinnati, Ohio near the Ohio River and have been seeing green anoles outside for the past few years (not to be confused with the wall lizard; I'm pretty sure that these pocket populations have to be transplants but have apparently made a way to establish themselves- I am wondering if global warming (if it really exists) has expanded the range of the green anole. Any answers out there for me? Thanks.

Concerning that picture of two lizards on a gate: Are they really Carolina Anoles? They both have very conspicuous crests, unlike the ones in the other pictures and also unlike the many that I have observed in the wild. The description suggests that the photographer may have been in some exotic place when he went out to the pool area. Also, I notice that there is a species Anolis cristatellus cristatellus. Hmm. . . Even more hmmm when I read the article on cristatellus, which has been introduced into the USA. FWIW. Maurice Fox 19:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Um, dangerous to small children? Really? - (unsigned post from 220.147.147.7 00:50, October 30, 2005)


 * I'll second that. Care to explain / cite sources?  - Miwa 04:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * They might be dangerous, but when I was kid growing up on the Outer Banks, I used to catch them every day. I'd let the rascals bite my earlobes and then walk around with them hanging there like earings. -Gavin 06:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

On a different note, I can say that the description and photographs seem to describe perfectly a well-established species, undoubtedly from escaped pets, here in Honolulu. My experience is that they became numerous over the past 20 years. Bob 66.133.248.12 05:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I've removed "Anoles can be dangerous to small children and should generally be left alone when encountered in the wild.", not only because it was unsourced and doubted (see above), but because anything can be dangerous to small children and everything should generally be left alone in the wild. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 16:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * When caught and held, anoles will protest violently for the first few minutes by jumping around and holding their jaws open to bite, often secreting bodily fluids in hopes of defying their captors; afterwards, though, they tend to calm down and become rather compliant.

This just simply isn't true. Anoles are well known for being very timid as far as lizards go. If you were able to catch a wild anole in your hands (it's quite difficult as they're very flighty) it would most certainly drop its tail immediately. Anoles, like a lot of lizards, do not have a very sophisticated digestion system and can only expel one type of excrement (which tends to be white and the consistency of paste). I have no idea where this above sentence came from but I'd like to see some references. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.116.13.229 (talk &bull; contribs).


 * Thanks for your suggestion! I've gone ahead and removed the text in question; I also had some hesistation about it when I first read it. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note? ) 23:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh, I've caught Brown Anoles on numerous occasions, and Green anoles less often, and the generally the only time I've seen them drop their tail is when It's grabbed by the tail. nonetheless, that's original research, and I don't have a source for it. Michael1115 (talk) 23:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

suggestions for addition
Three sections of the page that I believe to be missing are interaction with humans and livestock/bites to humans, social behavior, and phylogeny. Since green anoles are often kept as pets, it would be helpful to include a section explaining possible disease transmission, agricultural impact, and human attacks. Social behavior would also be helpful to include as there was a brief mention that green anoles form loose clans which I believe is something that can be elaborated on. Lastly, seeing that the green anole is one of the first amniotes to have been sequenced, it would be interesting to see there be a further discussion of its phylogeny, genetics, and genomic research.

Joshuachenwustl (talk) 07:08, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Gallery removed
Why was the gallery removed on Jan 22? I can't find a way to get to the pictures on the current page. Am I missing something here?

Description
I edited the description section since there was a lot of misguided information on how to tell the two sexes apart. BOTH sexes can exhibit a mid-dorsal stripe along the backbone, even though a lot of adult males will eventually lose this feature, there are still several who retain the stripe. And juvenile males still exhibit this stripe, so that should not be a factor to tell a male from a female apart. Dewlaps should not be an indicator as to whether or not the anole is male or female. BOTH sexes can have a dewlap, it is just that generally in adult specimins the males exhibit it more frequently and are generally larger and more colorful, and the dewlaps are often (but not always) smaller and less colorful in the females. Yes, females DO have dewlaps, as I have seen them display their dewlaps several times in my life, and I currently own 4 green carolina anoles of my own, and I especially see it in threat displays for the females. And head size and all that is only relevant in adult specimins. The most proper way to sex an anole is through the hemipenile bulges exhibited ONLY IN MATURE MALES as well as the ENLARGED POSTANAL SCALES located beneath the VENT of ONLY MALES of the species, and age for that is not a factor, so even juvenile males will exhibit this feature. DragonTU84 04:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)DragonTU84

Teeth As of 12/15/10 there is a sentence that claims that Anoles in general do not have teeth. I know that both Anolis sagrie and Anolis carolinensis (Green Anole) have teeth, or at the very least, teeth like structures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.55.190.248 (talk) 02:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, they have teeth alright...and surprisingly large too. On the biggest individuals the teeth can even draw blood. I'll fix the sentence when I come across it. Crimsonraptor (talk) 17:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Breeding/Mating
I editted some of the info. that I originally wrote in this section, as I know some of the wording and vocabulary got a little confusing. I also deleted somebody's comment that hatchling anoles feed off of the regurgitated food of their parents. This is true for BIRDS, NOT reptiles like green anoles!!!!! So please stop providing misinformation and confusing the reader, especially when I already stated that the female anole just buries the egg in soft compost and lets it to hatch and fend for itself...this totally just contradicts this already known fact and just confuses rather than helps the reader.

But anyways, most of the editting was just re-phrasing sentences and paragraphs so the reader can hopefully better understand the message I am trying to get across on anole breeding behaviors. DragonTU84 (talk) 20:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Coloration/Color Morphs
In reptiles like green anoles, there lies layers of pigments called chromatophores, and for there to be an albino reptile all of the color layers must be missing, not just the melanophores. For instance, since the anole color spectrum is made up of cyanophores, melanophores and xanthrophores, ALL 3 HAVE TO BE LACKING for an "albino" specimin to be produced. The incidence is even RARER than the rare blue-phased anole I noted in the discussion. DragonTU84 (talk) 20:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Photo Question
What's with the "What a blue-phased green anole WOULD look like" picture? Why don't we also edit the picture so users would know what a purple, plaid, or fuschia anole "WOULD" look like as well? I propose removing the picture and letting someone that can capture a blue-phased green anole on film post an actual picture of one, rather than an edited picture. kthx. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)


 * I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. The image in question has been removed and a picture of a regular green anole has taken its place. Anybody who is able to capture a photograph of a true blue-phased anole, please feel free to replace my image with one of a blue-phased. DragonTU84 19:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)DragonTU84

Brown anole
There should probably be a section on the negative impacts that the brown Anole has had on the population of the green anole. I believe  I Believe I will start one. Michael1115 (talk) 21:11, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

There's a few sentences. About the thing concerning potted plants in nurseries, I got that from Florida's Fabulous Reptiles & Amphibians, but I don't know how to to do the little reference link thingy. I'll have to figure that out. Michael1115 (talk) 21:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Photo gallery
The captions in the photo gallery referred to this species as both a Green Anole, A Carolina Anole, and a Green Carolina Anole. As the title of the article is Carolina anole, I changed all the captions to that. Michael1115 (talk) 00:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Please read Common_names philiptdotcom (talk) 23:13, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Extra info in Distribution
There was a lot of extra info in distribution which didn't seem to fit, so I moved some to behavior and deleted a little that had to do with identification and didn't seem to have any where to go Michael1115 (talk) 00:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed some "how to" content
I Removed two paragraphs in the reproduction area that seemed to be more instructional than encyclopedic. Michael1115 (talk) 13:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC) (B)-|-=

Removed "Anole World" site link
Site uses material plagiarized from Kingsnake.com former anole website "Under the Leaves" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.168.180 (talk) 08:20, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Anole aggressiveness
Just a new-found discovery that might be of some importance... I used to have a pair of these guys, and surprisingly the female was the much more aggressive of the two (and I mean it---you knew who we were talking about in our house when we mentioned "the terrorist"). Recently I talked to other anole owners from around New Jersey and got the same result. So it seems to me that, although all the experts still say the males are the feisty ones, the females rule the roost. This probably hasn't been accepted by the scientific community of course, so I won't put anything in yet. Any thoughts? Crimsonraptor (talk) 15:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Rename?
It's me again. Every time I've seen the species in books, magazines, or whatever, they're always labeled Green Anoles instead of Carolina Anoles. Certainly that's the most common name for them (aside from "American Chameleon"...ick), and even herpetologists use the term. Should we move the article then? Crimsonraptor (talk) 14:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Nothing. No response.


 * ANYBODY? Crimsonraptor &#124; (Contact me) Dumpster dive if you must 13:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Green Anole is what we call them down here in Florida at least. I have also noticed that just about every publication refers to them by Green Anole. However, because their binomial name is Anolis carolinensis I think that their correct common name would be the Carolina Anole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.55.190.248 (talk) 15:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Please read Common_names philiptdotcom (talk) 23:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I tried moving the page to "Green anole" but I guess it's been co-opted. Not sure what other avenues exist. Biqboi (talk) 22:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Green anole seems too confusing to me considering the number of other species also referred to as "Green anole" Tyler Hohenstein (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Edits need to be made to page
Should "brown anole" be a subheading? Why not "Threats [in native range]" instead (more general, more consistent w/ encyclopedic style)?

Also, refs need to be added (including to the additional range info I just added RE: Anolis sagrei in Hawaii [which should probably be better-incorporated into the text, or eliminated altogether if heading is changed to "Threats [in native range]"). The best/most authoritative ref for this will be the Hawaii Biological Survey (Bishop Museum) Occasional Papers series (which I'm just too lazy to look up right now).

23:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philiptdotcom (talk • contribs)

Bringing up renaming again
Can we please change the main page title back to Green anole, instead of the misguided current "Carolina anole"? No one is fighting for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to be renamed "Virginia deer," so I don't see why this page has to be "Carolina anole." I tried moving it to "Green anole" but couldn't. Biqboi (talk) 22:01, 28 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The term "Green anole" could be used for several members of the Dactyloidae family. The term American green anole would be better, though these anoles are not necessarily green.  The term Carolina anole, relates to the binomial name well, and is only used to refer to Anolis carolinensis.

The argument you used was an emotional WP:I just don't like it, which is not a valid reason to re-term an article. The Soldier of Peace (talk) 20:16, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the note; I did not convey that information well. The thrust of what I should have conveyed was that if a Wikipedia article is going to have a common name as its main title, it should probably at least be a common name that is relatively common. If "green anole" was inadequate as the article title, "Carolina anole" would certainly have been no better (I recognize that this sentence may also be an "I just don't like it," and for that I do apologize). The current state of the page with the binomial scientific name as the default title is definitely an improvement. I'm less concerned about the page being named "green anole" and more interested in having an accurate, representative article title, which "Anolis carolinensis" addresses. Biqboi (talk) 04:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Eight common names
This poor lizard now has 8 common names... can we leave just the most accepted one or two (maybe just "green anole"?) in the lead and put the other ones below? Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 01:15, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

suggestion for adding sections
Overall, the page has a fantastic start. There are however, three sections of the page that I believe to be missing and should be added. These are interaction with humans and livestock/bites to humans, social behavior, and phylogeny. Since green anoles are often kept as pets, it would be helpful to include a section explaining possible disease transmission, agricultural impact, and human attacks. Social behavior would also be helpful to include as there was a brief mention that green anoles form loose clans which I believe is something that can be elaborated on. Lastly, seeing that the green anole is one of the first amniotes to have been sequenced, it would be interesting to see there be a further discussion of its phylogeny, genetics, and genomic research.

Joshuachenwustl (talk) 04:28, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Anole should should redirect to an anole page or an anole disambiguation page...
When looking up Anols or Anoles there is "No page found". There needs to be a disambiguation page or else Anole should redirect to one of the prominent anole species. Listings are by the scientific name of anolis, and anol is a chemical. Perhaps a better way is to have an Anole page and list the subspecies on that page. 99.42.89.21 (talk) 17:21, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * "Anoles" and "Anole" should redirect to Dactyloidae, the family of lizards known as "anoles." That page should cover the many different species. I'm not sure why you're getting "No page found"?
 * As for the chemical anol, it doesn't have a recognized plural "anols", so that's probably why you're seeing page not found. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 01:30, 7 July 2021 (UTC)