A lizard that argues with its throat
On a December afternoon in the Dominican Republic, a stocky little lizard was holding court on a low stone wall. It did push-ups, as if testing the gravity, then flashed a bright fold of skin from under its chin, inflating it like a tiny flag. The performance was aimed at nothing I could see, but the lizard clearly believed it was the most important animal on the wall.
This is Anolis hispaniolae, the common stout anole, a member of the anole family Dactyloidae. It is endemic to the island of Hispaniola, where it is one of the most frequently seen lizards, darting across paths, walls and tree trunks with a characteristic stop-and-go motion. The stout build and short snout distinguish it from the slimmer anoles sharing the same gardens.
That throat fan, called a dewlap, is the anole’s main instrument of communication. Males extend it to warn off rivals and advertise themselves to females, and the push-ups are part of the same message. It is a language of posture and color, and it happens all around you constantly in the tropics once you start looking for it. The genus is famous across the Caribbean for exactly this kind of display, and every island has its own cast of dewlap-flashing characters.
The species name hispaniolae simply means “of Hispaniola,” a name worn plainly and accurately. An island lizard, arguing with its throat on an island wall: the whole scene was local, and entirely self-important.
