Author Archives: Yoel Stuart

About Yoel Stuart

Yoel studies evolutionary ecology of Anolis lizards. He is a graduate student at Harvard University, in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.

White Nose Fungus? Or Just Shed Skin?

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

I’ve noticed that many of the anoles in my breeding colony occasionally have white protuberances emerging from their nostrils, like the two-month old hatchling to the left. I haven’t been able to determine whether these protuberances are the remnants of … Continue reading →

Posted in Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field | 11 Comments

Anole Annals Poetry Competition extended

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

We’ve decided to extend the deadline for the poetry competition one more week. We’ve had a number of good entries but would love some more!

Posted in uncategorized | 4 Comments

Anole Annals Poetry Competition

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

What do all these people have in common? Well, they’re all poets in case you didn’t know it. On Nov. 21 2009, two years ago to the day, Jonathan Losos contributed the first Anole Annals blog post. The post contained … Continue reading →

Posted in Anole Art, Literature, and Humor | 9 Comments

Marking Techniques for Population Studies

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Many studies of natural selection, behavioral ecology, and population biology in anoles focus on one to several populations over the course of days, weeks, or months. These studies require reliable identification of individual lizards over time. I describe several ID’ing … Continue reading →

Posted in Research Methods | 18 Comments

Juvenile Feeding Behavior

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Over the past 6 weeks or so, I’ve been spending a lot of time caring for  Anolis carolinensis hatchlings as part of my common garden experiment. One of the most striking things that I’ve noticed about these growing lizards is … Continue reading →

Posted in Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field | 6 Comments

Zig First, Then Zag.

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

This female Anolis carolinensis has a tail that is kinked in a zig-zag fashion, starting from what seems to be the proximal autotomization point and continuing distally along the tail. The kinks are permanent. Running the tail between one’s fingers fails … Continue reading →

Posted in Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field | 9 Comments

Notes from a Common Garden Experiment

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

We are in the midst of a common garden experiment in which we’ve taken gravid Anolis carolinensis females from morphologically differentiated populations in the wild and returned with them to the lab where we are collecting eggs to incubate and hatch. … Continue reading →

Posted in New Research, Research Methods | 9 Comments

Anolis Video from Day’s Edge

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Another video about Anolis research from Day’s Edge Productions. Cool research! Great footage!

Posted in Anole Art, Literature, and Humor, Introduced Anoles, New Research, Notes from the Field, Research Methods | 3 Comments

Anoles In Space

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

On July 8, we took a break from field work here in Florida to watch the launch of NASA’s last Space Shuttle mission. During the build up to the launch, I thought a lot about the end of the Shuttle … Continue reading →

Posted in Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field | 2 Comments

Lizards On Islands

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Turns out that there are lizards out there besides anoles evolving on islands. Check out this award winning film from Nathan Dappen. The film took first place in the first annual NESCent Evolution Film contest. 11 films were screened and … Continue reading →

Posted in Anole Art, Literature, and Humor, Natural History Observations | 1 Comment

Traveling With Ethanol? Think Twice.

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Any field biologist you talk to likely has pickled specimens in formalin or ethanol at some point during her career. Similarly, ask a molecular ecologist, and it’s probable that he’s preserved some tissue samples in ethanol. It’s also likely that those … Continue reading →

Posted in Research Methods | 3 Comments

A Royal Anole

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

With all the hoopla over the royal wedding between Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton, I thought it necessary to Google “Anolis Prince William” to see whether the future king had had any interactions with this blog’s most noble subjects … Continue reading →

Posted in Natural History Observations | Leave a comment

Top 10 Gear List

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

The Anolis field season, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, lasts from about mid-April to late-August. As winter finally loosens its grip on 2011, anole biologists everywhere are planning trips, breaking out field kits, shaking out field clothes, and gathering replacement … Continue reading →

Posted in Research Methods | 8 Comments

Man Bites Dog

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

We’ve had a number of posts here at Anole Annals about lizards falling prey to snakes. Neil Losin, an anole biologist blogging over at Day’s Edge Productions, tells us a different story. Check it out!

Posted in Natural History Observations | Leave a comment

Principle of Unsympathetic Magic

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

  “It was while walking along a hedge row in the Dominican Republic, listening to a complaint that I and some of my co-workers did not frame hypotheses every day while in the field, that I invented (or recognized) the … Continue reading →

Posted in Natural History Observations | 1 Comment

Anole Documentary Short

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Who’s your neighbor? Check out this short documentary by biologist Neil Losin about Anolis research in Miami. It’s cool research and contains some great video and still footage of anoles! After the video, explore the rest of Losin and Nathan … Continue reading →

Posted in Anole Art, Literature, and Humor, Anoles and Anolologists in the News, Notes from the Field | 1 Comment

Anolis conspersus

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Alexis Harrison and I have spent the last two days on Grand Cayman collecting tail tips from Anolis sagrei. During our work, we’ve seen quite a few A. conspersus. Anolis conspersus is nested within the Jamaican A. grahami, splitting away approximately 2.5 … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes from the Field | Leave a comment

A Cayman Brac Invasion?

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Yoel Stuart

Over the last half-century, Anolis sagrei sagrei, a Cuban native, has become a global citizen. Likely as a stowaway in agricultural trade shipments, it has traveled to near-Cuba places like Florida, Jamaica, and Grand Cayman. It has gone as far … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes from the Field | 10 Comments

Anole Classic: Rand, 1964

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Yoel Stuart

A. Stanley Rand. 1964. Ecological distribution in Anoline lizards of Puerto Rico. Ecology 45: 745-752. Rand examined resource partitioning by seven Anolis species in Puerto Rico. Because of their general ecological similarity, Rand hypothesized that the anole species in Puerto … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics from the Literature | 4 Comments

The Anoles of Mérida

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Yoel Stuart

“It must be the oldest part of Mérida…. In the afternoon when the sun lights the stucco buildings across the street, it’s possible to count a dozen different colors of paint, all fading together on the highest part of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Anole Art, Literature, and Humor | 5 Comments