Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I live in South Miami and I found this guy in the shade this morning (on that black thing in the first photo). I never got close enough to take any good photos, but I hope these will do.

He was fairly long, a little longer than a full grown adult male brown anole, but I can't drop the feeling that this was a juvie or sub-adult. The body was significantly stouter than any of the small anole species I've seen (brown, bark, green, etc.).

His eyes were huge, far larger than the anole eyes I'm used to. It has that significant crest and a bit of a dewlap, which isn't visible in the photo. He stood and watched me get close enough to take the photos with my crappy 2x zoom, but he eventually scurried away. There was no territorial display.

The awful thing is that I swear I've seen photos of this guy before on the internet somewhere... but my mind draws a blank. Crown supergiant (I've never seen one)??? Any other ideas???

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Got hips like Cinderella / Must be having a good shame / Talking sweet about nothing / Cookie I think you're Tame

(A fix to the last post... "I've never seen this one"

Okay, to me, A. baleatus looks the closest, but still not quite right. I'd go ahead and assume it was just a juvie knight or Jamaican if not for such a prominent crest. I'm really stumped.
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Got hips like Cinderella / Must be having a good shame / Talking sweet about nothing / Cookie I think you're Tame

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Got hips like Cinderella / Must be having a good shame / Talking sweet about nothing / Cookie I think you're Tame

Looks like a big headed anole, Anolis cybates, to me.

Best,

Chuck

Actually, Anolis cybotes is tannish brown, rather like a brown anole - never green.

A keep a knight anole, and I bought it as a juvenile, and I'm certain that that's what is in the photos - a juvenile A. equestris. He appears to be stressed, that is why he is brownish in several of the pics.

Juvenile knights, most usually males, have light whitish or yellowish bars or bands running from the dorsal crest down to the belly. Often there are whitish or yellowish spots behind the head, on the side of the neck. All knight anoles have muscles along their back that they can contract when perturbed that lifts the dorsal crest into a distinct ridge running from the back of the head all the way down the body.

When stressed enough to change brown, often the labial (lip) stripe, and shoulder stripe change to a rusty brown color as well. Also when stressed the entire eye area, from the actual eye, out to the orbital ridges turns a dark velvety black. Maybe this is what you saw, and assumed (quite reasonably) that it had a very large black eye.

I hope this info helps out. Again, almost definitely an Anolis equestris juvenile, probably a male - although there is a slight possibility that it may not be the subspecies of knight most commonly seen in Florida.

Lisa

np
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Got hips like Cinderella / Must be having a good shame / Talking sweet about nothing / Cookie I think you're Tame