Coming up the front walk today without doing any of my typical surveying for subjects, I only spotted this because of how freaking obvious it was.
After having seen the pregnant female Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) several times in the front area, I stopped seeing any sign of her. This was vaguely troubling, because in an effort to stop the marauding leopard slugs, we’d put out a shallow pan of beer; this did not work as advertised, but I never saw the female again after that and I was afraid she’s poisoned herself on the beer. But now, we have this guy right in the same region, and I suspect that the size/scale is evident. Those big green sweet potato leaves are growing from (and completely concealing) the same blue planter that the expecting mother was pictured on in that linked post. This is the smutphone shot – I quickly scampered in and got a camera to do this proper.
I did two quick sessions, correcting some oversights from the first, and in the interim the anole had moved – had I not known it was in the immediate vicinity, I likely never would have spotted it atop the daylily bud. It was being pretty cooperative, I have to admit – it definitely knew I was around and made some motions in consideration of concealing itself, but was likely relying on motionlessness instead. I can always work with that.
This is cropped of course, especially since I wasn’t even using the extension tube on the Mamiya 80mm macro, but still, I was less than a half-meter away. I have no precise measurement, but that eye is almost certainly 2mm in width or less; the entire anole, long tail included, was the length of my finger. You will, almost certainly, be seeing more of it later on.