If you’ve followed my threads carefully through the years, and you haven’t, I’ve gone from a grass backyard with lots of lawn furniture, placed surrealistically in odd positions for a few months,* to a fenced backyard with lots of plants and landscaping.
First came “Invasion of the giant dog turd spiders.” This was when the spiders moved in and became the peak predators. The largest ones would fight over positioning on the dog turds in the backyard and just let the flies come to them. The so-called balance of nature was upset. (I’d call it the wildly swinging semi-equilibrium of nature.)
In came the Florida and Cuban anoles. We have almost every species found in Florida in the backyard now. Spiders have returned to their normal quicker sizes, become shy again, and have given up on their plans for world domination through the strategic use of dog feces.
Then came the Cuban tree frogs. Luckily there were some large toads and quick little tree frogs that managed to escape their cannabalistic cousins.
OK, now I’m a bit stumped.
Yesterday while watering in some trees, I spied what I would term a crested Cuban “Steganole.”
I know what I saw, as I just sat there and stared as long as I could. They’ll usually lose the staring contest within 15 seconds and run away. Trying to get the digital camera would have just cut down on my viewing time as anoles are on the hyper side of skittish.
It’s a normal Cuban anole with the little crest, but where the tail would usually break off there is a blob of what looks to be tail, um, material. No spikes or anything. YET.
I’m guessing that it is a useless mutation. But, since I saw it on a large male anole, who knows?
*Amazing, nobody ever just walked off with it. I think having it just sitting there made it look like some kind of trap.