A Budding Behavioral Ecologist

Descriptions of anole social interactions have a rich history. For example, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin describes in great detail the maleness of male anoles. In a similar vein, a paper written by Shufeldt (1883), published in The American Naturalist, used a flowery approach to describe signaling in A. carolinensis. More recently, in the early 1960's Tom Jenssen, Stan Rand, Rodolfo Ruibal, and Judy Stamps wrote a series of papers, addressing social interactions in anoles, which have become the foundation of the field. Even with this rich history, it is extremely difficult not to get excited when witnessing male-male combat in anoles, particularly if you are doing so for the first time (as illustrated by this short video clip recorded yesterday by Angela). This is Angela's first experience collecting behavioral data on anoles. Clearly she is having a blast.