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Anolis leachii DUMÉRIL & BIBRON, 1837

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Higher TaxaAnolidae, Iguania, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Antigua Bank Tree Anole, Barbuda Bank tree anole, Panther Anole 
SynonymAnolis leachii DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1837: 152
Anolis leachii — BOULENGER 1885: 29
Anolis bimaculatus leachii — UNDERWOOD in WILLIAMS et al. 1959
Anolis bimaculatus leachi — LAZELL 1972: 52
Ctenonotus bimaculatus leachi — SCHWARTZ & HENDERSON 1988
Anolis leachi — BURNELL & HEDGES 1990
Anolis leachi — POWELL & HENDERSON 2001
Ctenonotus leachii — NICHOLSON et al. 2018 
DistributionBarbuda, Antigua and its satellites; introduced on Bermuda.

Introduced to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

Type locality: “Antilles”; restricted to “St. John’s, Antigua” by LAZELL 1972.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: MNHN-RA 2454 (indicated as syntype in MNHN catalogue) 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: Lazell 1972: 52


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CommentSynonymy partly after LAZELL 1972. Anolis leachii has been synonymized with A. alliaceus by Günther 1888.

A. b. leachii differs from A. bimaculatus from the St. Kitts Bank not only in inhabiting a different island bank, but in having a relatively smaller nuchal crest, larger dewlap, smaller maximum size, ornate sculpturing of the lower jaw (Etheridge, 194), yellow rather than green orbital skin, and differences in pattern (weakly rather than strongly developed costal spot and a light shoulder stripe that fades at midbody, whereas the stripe of A. b. bimaculatus almost always extends to the groin). However, because some specimens from St. John’s (Antigua) had a “decidedly yellow-green orbital skin,” Lazell (1972) felt that he had “no choice but to regard these two forms as still conspecific.”

Hybridization: Male A. leachii and female A. bimaculatus can interbreed and produce offspring (Weidlich 2023, Anole Annals).

Species group: Ctenonotus bimaculatus species group (fide NICHOLSON et al. 2012). 
EtymologyNamed after Dr. William Elford Leach (1790-1836) was a trained physician who became a zoologist to work at the British Museum (1813-1821), where he became an expert on crustaceans. 
References
  • Beolens, Bo; Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA - get paper here
  • Boulenger, G.A. 1885. Catalogue of the lizards in the British Museum (Natural History). Vol. 2, Second edition. London, xiii+497 pp. - get paper here
  • Burnell, K. L.;Hedges, S. B. 1990. Relationships of West Indian Anolis (Sauria: Iguanidae): An approach using slow-evolving protein loci. Carib. J. Sci. 26 (1-2): 7-30 - get paper here
  • Daltry, Jennifer C. 2007. An introduction to the herpetofauna of Antigua, Barbuda and Redonda, with some conservation recommendations. Applied Herpetology 4 (2): 97-130. - get paper here
  • Duméril, A. M. C. and G. Bibron. 1837. Erpétologie Générale ou Histoire Naturelle Complete des Reptiles. Vol. 4. Libr. Encyclopédique Roret, Paris, 570 pp. - get paper here
  • Gorman, G.C. 1969. The zoogeography of Lesser Antillean Anolis lizards; an analysis based upon chromosomes and lactic dehydrogenases. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard 138 (3): 53-80. - get paper here
  • Helmus, Matthew R.; Jocelyn E. Behm, Wendy A.M. Jesse, Jason J. Kolbe,Jacintha Ellers, and Jonathan B. Losos 2016. EXOTICS EXHIBIT MORE EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY THAN NATIVES: A COMPARISON OF THE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF EXOTIC AND NATIVE ANOLE LIZARDS. In: Invasion Genetics: The Baker and Stebbins Legacy, First Edition. Edited by Spencer C. H. Barrett, Robert I. Colautti, Katrina M. Dlugosch, and Loren H. Rieseberg; John Wiley & Sons, pp. 122-138 (publication year given as 2017 in the book) - get paper here
  • Irschick, D.J. Austin, C.C.; Petren, K.; Fisher, R.N.; Losos, J.B. & Ellers, O. 1996. A comparative analysis of clinging ability among pad-bearing lizards. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 59: 21-35 - get paper here
  • KÖHLER, GUNTHER 2014. Characters of external morphology used in Anolis taxonomy—Definition of terms, advice on usage, and illustrated examples. Zootaxa 3774 (2): 201–257 - get paper here
  • Lazell,J.D. 1972. The anoles (Sauria: Iguanidae) of the lesser Antilles. Bull. Mus. comp. Zool. Harvard 143 (1): 1-115 - get paper here
  • Losos, J. B. 2009. Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 528 pp. - get paper here
  • Macedonia, J.M. & D.L. Clark 2003. Headbob Display Structure in the Naturalized Anolis Lizards of Bermuda: Sex, Context, and Population Effects Journal of Herpetology 37 (2): 266-276. - get paper here
  • Malhotra, A. & Thorpe, R.S. 1999. Reptiles & Amphibians of the Eastern Caribbean. MacMillan, London & Oxford
  • NICHOLSON, KIRSTEN E.; BRIAN I. CROTHER, CRAIG GUYER & JAY M. SAVAGE 2018. Translating a clade based classification into one that is valid under the international code of zoological nomenclature: the case of the lizards of the family Dactyloidae (Order Squamata). Zootaxa 4461 (4): 573–586 - get paper here
  • Platenberg, Renata 2019. Barbuda Bank Tree Anole (Anolis leachii) on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. IRCF 26 (1): 79 - get paper here
  • Poe, S. 2004. Phylogeny of anoles. Herpetological Monographs 18: 37-89 - get paper here
  • Poe, S. 2013. 1986 Redux: New genera of anoles (Squamata: Dactyloidae) are unwarranted. Zootaxa 3626 (2): 295–299 - get paper here
  • Powell, Robert and Henderson, R.W. 2001. On the Taxonomic Status of Some Lesser Antillean Lizards. Carib. J. Sci. 37 (3-4): 288-290
  • Roughgarden, J. 1995. Anolis Lizards of the Caribbean: Ecology, Evolution, and Plate Tectonics. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 200 pp.
  • Schwartz, A. & Henderson, R.W. 1991. Amphibians and Reptiles of the West Indies. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, 720 pp.
  • Stenson, Andrew G.; Roger S.Thorpe and Anita Malhotra 2004. Evolutionary differentiation of bimaculatus group anoles based on analyses of mtDNA and microsatellite data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 32: 1 –10 - get paper here
  • Thorpe, R. S., Barlow, A., Surget-Groba, Y., & Malhotra, A. 2018. Multilocus phylogeny, species age and biogeography of the Lesser Antillean anoles. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution - get paper here
  • Thorpe, R.S. 2022. Reptiles of the Lesser Antilles. Chimaira, Frankfurt, 608 pp. - get paper here
  • Williams, Ernest E.; Quesnel, Victor C.; Kenny, Julian S.; Underwood,G. 1959. The anoles of the Eastern Caribbean (Sauria, Iguanidae) Part. I. Preface; Part II. Two sibling species of anoles in Trinidad; Part. III. Revisionary notes. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard 121 (5): 185-226 + 1 plate - get paper here
  • Wingate, D.B. 1965. Terrestrial herpetofauna of Bermuda. Herpetologica 21 (3): 202-218. - get paper here
 
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