Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Green Anole Lizard
By: Tom Berg
One of the small lizards native to the southeastern United States is the Green Anole. This lizard prefers to live in and around trees, although it is often seen scurrying along the ground in search of insects to eat. It also hunts for insects among the branches and leaves of trees, and uses the foliage of trees to hide from its enemies.
These speedy little lizards are sometimes called the Carolina anole, American green anole, red-throated anole and American chameleon. As their name says, the green anole’s skin is often a bright green color. But they can actually be green, brown, or some combination of green and brown. Similar to chameleons, the green anole can change color based on breeding season, mood, stress and even temperature. Unlike chameleons, though, they do not change color to blend in with their background habitat. In fact, they are not chameleons at all, and they are more closely related to iguanas.
The green anole is a fierce insect predator, and they will hunt down and eat any insect they can fit in their relatively large mouths. Some of their favorite foods include ants, flies, spiders, beetles, moths, crickets and many other crawling bugs. They will also eat invertebrates like worms, snails and others. They typically will only eat live prey.
Male green anoles have a reddish-pink throat fan that is also called a dewlap. The males extend or “puff up” their throat fan in response to danger or when defending their territory from rival males. They also extend their throat fan during breeding season when trying to attract a mate. Males try to impress the females by puffing out their dewlap while doing a mating dance.
Green anole lizards are common in the southeast, and they love habitats with high humidity. They can be found from North Carolina and South Carolina all the way west to eastern Texas. They are present in every state in between, and can be found to the south in the Gulf coast states and even as far south as the Florida Keys.
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