Earlier this week I wrote a post about a nest-site choice study that Aaron and Dan had done in the lab. However, anole nests are notoriously difficult to study in the field- very little is known about anole nesting. However today, we found two anole eggs on one of our islands, which was very exciting for us.
Reptiles have varied reproductive strategies. Some give live birth, which is known as viviparity. Most reptiles, however, are oviparous, which means they lay eggs. And most of these oviparous reptiles lay many eggs in a single clutch. Anoles, however, lay a single egg at a time. We are not certain why anoles lay only one egg, but this is a question some evolutionary biologists have studied. One hypothesis is that the female can escape predators more easily by only carrying one egg at a time. There are many other intriguing hypotheses, however.
Whatever the reason, we were excited to find two anole nests (which consisted of one egg each!). Check it out
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