What do the different species think of one another? We often speculate, but of course we’ll never know. Luckily for us, speculating can be fun, and the interaction we observed in this video, between a green anole lizard and a Texas spiny lizard, hanging out on a branch over the dry creek, definitely had us wondering.
Dan thinks they’re courting. I think they’re showing off: “I’m bigger than you are”, “Maybe, but I have this cool pink balloon thing attached to my throat. The girls just love it”.
But I’m getting ahead of myself… Before we get to the courting/challenging part of the video (and we’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on this one), Dan has included some spectacular close-ups of a male green anole inflating and deflating his dewlap. There was no one around to impress, so perhaps he was just practicing for a future audience? (Females sometimes have small dewlaps, but it’s rare, so we’re pretty sure this was a male.)
Green anoles are the second-most commonly seen lizards around here, after Texas spiny lizards. They can change color from the bright leaf green you see in this video to a dull tree-bark brown. So sometimes they’re like glowing jewels and sometimes they’re so well camoflagued they’re hard to see unless they move.
Spiny lizard: Sceloporus olivaceus
Green anole lizard: Anolis carolinensis
2 Comments
I have alot of these little critters . All around my property. I will sit and watch them. They are characters. I just let them be. They take care of all the bugs. Very cool 😎
They are cool. We agree. We love to see them here.