Winter's in the air

[Radman]

This battle between two American Chameleons, aka Green Anoles (Anolis carolinensis) took place on the gutter spouts near my front walkway. These guys are not true chameleons although they can change color from green to brown, but are actually members of the iguana family. They're 5-6 inches long. Here two males approach each other at the corner of the house; a prime sunny location overlooking the shrubbery.


They get a little closer and and try to intimidate each other by puffing up and hissing:


When neither backs down eventually the battle is joined!


They locked jaws and struggled to push each other around. I could get very close at this point, they were too intent on each other to care about me. Their colors were very vivid at this juncture:


After about ten minutes, one gave up and crawled off into the Aspidistras:


The winner soon puffed out his throat pouch and began displaying for the females. At this point my camera's batteries died, but I'll add some more pictures later this spring.

[Griffin]

Those two are especially green! You should have taken a video!

[sid]

Epic battle! ;D

Lizards can be look quite vicious when they battle eachother... I said "look" because these animals, in reality, rarely truly injure themselves, as far as i know

[[][][]cordylus[][][]]

Awesome!

Mar 30, 2010 18:55:13 GMT sid said:

Epic battle! ;D

Lizards can be look quite vicious when they battle eachother... I said "look" because these animals, in reality, rarely truly injure themselves, as far as i know

Male lizards can sometimes get so bloody that they bite the legs of their opponents

[Radman]

Mar 30, 2010 16:30:30 GMT Griffin said:

Those two are especially green! You should have taken a video!

I'll try to get some video next time.

[Radman]

At night, the tree frogs here get into the act. No action pix, unfortunately, but here are some pix of two different individual American tree frogs, Hyla cinere. These guys are all over the house starting at dusk, especially near the lights. They're about 3 inches (7-8 cm) from nose to tail and can be quite noisy.

[Radman]

A mature 5-lined skink sunning among the young bananas and hollyhocks.


It's about a foot long.



The juveniles have striking colors with a vibrant electric-blue tail. They're also more active and alert and consequently harder to photograph.

[[][][]cordylus[][][]]

..... I need to live there.

[Gorgonopsid]

Very nice. Reminds me of the pre dinosaurs and dinosaurs battling for a mate.

[sid]

Mar 30, 2010 20:10:04 GMT [][][]cordylus[][][] said:

Male lizards can sometimes get so bloody that they bite the legs of their opponents

I didn't know that!

[hajime]

Those Anole things are so aggressive, especially considering their size. I've had one try and bite me when I was in Florida. D: I was trying to rescue it.

Whilst it's no where near as exciting, I have a pond in my garden with no fish in it and so wildlife goes berserk. I found yesterday that I have water lice. Yay isopods! Never seen them in there before, they are a new find for this year. The abundance of newt, frog and various insect larvae at this time of year is pretty immense. I tried introducing stickleback fish once (native fish, so they wouldn't damage the ecosystem like a gold fish might), but I think they've all died. I'll try and take some pictures, but I've got some shots from 2007.


Some baby newts. Literally I'd just scoop a bucket into the pond and find an abundance of these guys!


I get a lot of these common darter dragonflies.


And a few of these huge southern hawkers. You can see the shell of it's larval form at the bottom of the pic.

Oh, and we also get a pair of ducks visiting our garden... This is our other pond, the rubbish one with silly inbred fish in it. The fish sometimes bite the ducks feet. XD

[roselaar]

Excellent pics, Radman! You should consider yourself lucky to live around such fascinating wildlife (and please try to preserve it).

Living in the Netherlands there's not a lot of reptiles or amhibians to be found, but the common toads (Bufo Bufo) around here have been at it a lot lately. Our backyard is a small oasis in a largerly urban environment with little green and few water pools for laying eggs, but they've managed to find it during their annual trek. This year we had 12 toads, while two years back we had only 5. Nice to see they're doing well.

Two years ago, while visiting Hungary, I came across territorial fights between redbellied fire toads (Bombina Bombina). Amazing sight, especially for such little creatures! The males suck themselves full of air to produce the loudest sounds, and when they get to close to each other they just grab each other by the neck and wrestle around in the water squeezing the air out of the opponent. At the end, the fattest toad wins, while the loser looks like he has diminshed in size by 50 percent. I managed to film this ritual with a cellphone, but I don't know how to upload vids here.

I love reptiles and amphibians in this time of year, even more than during the rest of the year!

[[][][]cordylus[][][]]

Hajime - I love those little newty things in your pond. I wish I could have a pond and some newty things would show up in there

[hajime]

I went out today to have a look and saw an adult newt. So yay, hopefully will have babies this year too.

[Griffin]

What kinda newts are they?

[Gorgonopsid]

I used to have a fire belly newt. I got him when he was tiny. He got pretty big. Then one day he died on me.

[hajime]

Hard to say, we have 3 native newts and two are incredibly similar. Either Palmate or Smooth newts. Prob a mix of both. They are pretty hard to tell apart without close inspection, but I've found both in my pond before. Never seen any great crested.

[roselaar]

Apr 18, 2010 19:23:32 GMT hajime said:

Hard to say, we have 3 native newts and two are incredibly similar. Either Palmate or Smooth newts. Prob a mix of both. They are pretty hard to tell apart without close inspection, but I've found both in my pond before. Never seen any great crested.

Very likely Smooth Newt, considering the other two species are much rarer in the UK. But if you found both species in your pond before, chances are good of both of them returning.

[Radman]

Ground skink, Scincella lateralis out by the mulch pile. This is one of the smallest N. American reptiles, only about 3 inches long. They're quite common here.

[Radman]

Folks, this thread is devoted to flora and fauna of South Carolina, USA, specifically my back yard and front yard, although anyone, anywhere, is invited to show what they've got as well.

Here is a fox on my back patio:



Yes, it's an awful picture, so I ask anyone to post a better nocturnal wildlife picture ;D. Right around twilight, I noticed a pair of these beautiful animals hanging around; it took me about an hour just to get this shot, it's not like they pose for you with your crappy digital camera!
I'll post more pix of my cool plants next time, they hold still for you better! ;D

The white dots are moths and other bugs flying around.