About Anolis gundlachi Peters, 1877
Anolis gundlachi (Peters, 1877) is a medium-sized, sexually dimorphic lizard. Adult males reach a snout-to-vent length (SVL) of 68 mm (2.7 in), while adult females have an SVL of 45 mm (1.8 in). Adult individuals weigh between 3 and 7 grams. Their bodies are brown or olive-brown, with random brown spots along their length. This species has a yellow-brown dewlap and blue eyes, and males have crested tails. This lizard is native to Puerto Rico, where it occurs in the inner rainforests of the Luquillo mountains in northeastern Puerto Rico. It lives at altitudes ranging from 244 to 1,158 m (801 to 3,799 ft). A. gundlachi is a trunk-ground lizard, meaning it primarily lives and perches on the lower sections of large tree trunks; it rarely climbs more than 5 m (16 ft) above the ground. Its preference for wide, woody vegetation helps it stay hidden from predators, supports better locomotion, and lets it scan a larger area of its territory. Individuals of A. gundlachi have been observed returning to roughly the same location to sleep each night, indicating that the species maintains a specific designated sleep-site within its territory. Around 15 minutes before sunset, an individual approaches its sleep site, then lies horizontally on a leaf with its snout pointed toward the stem, and remains there until dawn. Remaining immobile on the leaf helps the lizard avoid predation, as individuals displaced from their sleeping sites are often preyed on by nocturnal predators. The plants A. gundlachi selects as sleep sites are usually adult trees taller than 1 m (3.3 ft) with woody stems and branches. Sleep-site selection depends on plant availability rather than any specific plant attribute. Only lizards with an SVL above 40 mm (1.6 in) use plants taller than one meter, and there is a positive correlation between sleep-site height and lizard size. This means juveniles choose differently than adults when it comes to sleep-site height on a plant. Anolis gundlachi is an oviparous lizard, so its offspring hatch from eggs laid by the mother.
