What Males Do

What anoles do is Science.

I know you all think I just sit around taking pictures of lizards and flowers, but really I don't. I just walked out the back door yesterday, and here was this guy, showing his stuff, like the males of so many species do (humans included).


The males are highly territorial. The dewlap, or "throat fan" is extended when approached by another male or if he feels threatened. They bob their head up and down and if the other male continues to advance, a battle may occur.

Humans are so lizard like in this respect. But, if I get into that, my natural science becomes more social science, so I will let it rest.

Herps

Habits of anoles (and herpetology students) are science. I can't exactly claim that riding on the hoods of cars is habitual for anoles, but something told him to leap up on the front of the car, unknown to us. These pictures, from inside the vehicle, were taken about 9 blocks from our home, when a green anole, Anolis carolinensis, popped up onto a windshield wiper. I assume he had hitched a ride from home.

My hope was that he would stay on the car (he disappeared under the edge of the hood when we resumed travelling) until we got home. Of course that would mean staying put while we ate lunch at Popeye's.
When we got home I found him, brown by that time, squeezed into a cranny of the wiper apparatus. I prodded him out with a twig and got him over to the fence, where he belonged.

I wonder what he told his buddies.

Riding on the hoods of cars was habitual for students of Dr. Robert Mount at Auburn. Dr. Mount was my professor at Auburn for some herpetology instruction. Part of our training involved capturing and identifying various species of reptiles and amphibians, and one of the best ways to catch certain salamanders was to drive slowly along country roads at night, while a student or two sat on the hood looking for critters crossing the road. (Why does the salamander cross the road?) Frogs are sometimes captured this way as well.

From Dr. Mount's book, The Reptiles & Amphibians of Alabama:

"Salamanders of the amphibian variety are secretive in habit and are most often found in damp places under logs, rocks, or in piles of debris. On wet nights they move about in the open and may be spotted with a light."

We took "open" to mean "open road" and "light" to mean "headlight".

Some salamanders such as the spotted salamander prefer temporary woodland ponds and other flooded areas for breeding. Often these are beside the roads, so we assume the salamanders are crossing the roads in search of a love pond.

Anyone up for a hunt?

What this blog is about...Science!

I also post at Bessemer Opinions and there you might find a crazy mix up of politics, science, flowers, religion, human rights, art and music. You still will, but I take a lot more pictures and research a lot more science than you will ever see there. So a lot of the pics and science stuff will go here.

All the science won't come from Bessemer, but some will. But I might write about embryonic stem cells or planets in our solar system. This blog will be tweaked over the next few weeks with some neat apps.

Here's a start. I took these pictures in the backyard on Thursday, March 26, 2009.

Lizards are science. This is a Green Anole (Anolis carolinenses), commonly and mistakenly called a chameleon. They are in the Iguanid family. They lay single eggs about every fourteen days from April to September in leaf litter, trash or debris. Incubation takes 5-7 weeks. The babies are on their own. And cute, too.

They change color depending on mood and temperature and stress. When I moved from Bluff Park I caught several of these and released them in the yard here in Bessemer. I don't know if these are descendants or if there was already a population here (most likely) but I like to think the ancestors of these came with me.


How do they change color? A Cornell scientist explains:

Green anoles aren't able to control their color changes to the same extent that chameleons are. They change in between various shades of brown and green depending upon stress levels, colors in their surrounding environment, and temperature. A light green anole is generally active, happy, and stress free. When they are mildly stressed, or when they become sleepy and tranquil, they may become light brown. This change in shade from brown to green is caused by cells that contain melanin, the same pigment that is responsible for different human skin colors. These melanin-containing cells are highly branched and spread throughout the skin. When the anole is brown, the melanin in the cell is allowed to fill all the branches, masking the greenish cells beneath. When the anole is green, the melanin is concentrated at the bottom of the cells, so the green colors show through the transparent branches.

Bees are science. This is a Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica, most likely). They hang around our back deck because they enjoy boring into a wooden bench to make their hibernaculum, or nest. They also like the garden shed. Males often hover in anticipation of mating or warding off other males. I don't know what this one had in mind. Males have the white cuticle on their face, you can see it in this photo. Males don't sting.

They can be important early spring pollinators, especially with other pollinators in decline.

I hope they don't bore into the giant rocker. I think the deck and railings are safe. They are not wood.

Females do the boring and build the nests. Males just hang around flowers (thinking they might happen upon a female that needs a mate) or guarding their territory. Food and sex, sound familiar?





Flowers are science. Here are two Tulips that are blooming. Tulips don't do particularly well here, but these were here in 2000 when I bought the house, and bloom every year.