Page 54 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #10

WILDNEWS

EVOLUTION

Anole lizards in the Some anoles have
larger sticky toe
pads that help
eye of the storm them hang on to
leaves in the face
of a hurricane.
urricanes Irma and Maria were
Hdevastating for the Caribbean,
but presented an opportunity to study
the effects of extreme weather on the
evolutionary process. When storms struck in
2017, biologists led by Harvard University’s
Colin Donihue had just completed a survey
of anole lizards on Pine Cay and Water Cay
islands north of the Caribbean. By repeating
the study after the destruction, they established
how a select few survived the 265kph winds.
“There were definitely fewer lizards,” says
Donihue. “We had to work harder to catch our
sample.” The team wondered whether surviving
animals had features that helped them cling onto
trees. “The sticky toe pads on their fingers and toes,
we thought maybe they would be larger,” says Donihue.
Indeed they were. But the survivors also sported longer than
average forelimbs and shorter hindlimbs compared to the
pre-storm population. Wind-tunnel experiments confirmed
that these characteristics keep anoles anchored (long
hindlimbs, for example, are unhelpful, catching the wind
like a sail). With hurricanes expected to rise in intensity,
anoles may need to get an even tighter grip on things. SB

FIND OUT MORE
Nature: nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0352-3

NEW SPECIES DISCOVERY It’s an honour: IN NUMBERS
the naming of
Squalus clarkae
Genie’s dogish immortalises a 1%
marine biologist.
Squalus clarkae of mountain hares remain in
Scotland’s eastern moorlands
compared with the level recorded
WHAT IS IT? This sleek, green-
more than 60 years ago.
eyed shark has been named
Squalus clarkae after trailblazing
marine biologist Eugenie Clark, 4,000m
who died in 2015 aged 92.“Not just
is the altitude that small birds
the first female shark biologist, she
occasionally reach when
was one of the first people to study
migrating from Europe back to
sharks,” said Toby Daly-Engel, one of
Africa,according to
the scientists behind the discovery.
Swedish researchers.
WHERE IS IT? Genie’s dogfish is a
deep-sea species from the Gulf
of Mexico and western Atlantic, 34
a region that was well known to
chicks fledged across northern
Eugenie Clark, who founded the Mote Anole: Colin Donihue; dogfish: Mar Alliance
Marine Laboratory in Florida. Clark SOURCE Zootaxa England in the most successful
and widely celebrated hen harrier
led expeditions around the world, https://biotaxa.org/
breeding season in recent years.
pioneering the use of submersibles in Zootaxa/article/view/
marine biology and diving to 3.5km SB zootaxa.4444.2.1

54 BBC Wildlife October 2018