Cordillera Oriental Stout Anole

About the Cordillera Oriental Stout Anole

Anolis higuey, the Cordillera Oriental stout anole, is a species of lizard in the family Dactyloidae. Males grow to 69 mm (2.7 in) and females to 51 mm (2.0 in) in snout–vent length. Males have dirty-white dewlaps with a yellow, green, or orange hue and regularly-arranged gorgetals, smaller in size towards the center of the dewlap. It is endemic to the eastern Dominican Republic, where it lives in a variety of habitats at elevations of up to 290 m (950 ft).

Anolis higuey was formally described in 2019 as Audantia higuey based on a specimen from Manatí Park Bávaro in the La Altagracia Province of the Dominican Republic. The species is named after Higüey, a pre-Columbian Taíno chiefdom that was located in the anole's range. It has the common name Cordillera Oriental stout anole.

Specimens of Anolis higuey were historically considered to represent Anolis cybotes, but A. higuey is in actuality most closely related to a clade formed by A. doris, armouri, shrevei, ravifaux, and hispaniolae. The extremely large genus Anolis is sometimes split into several smaller genera; under this arrangement, Anolis higuey is placed in the genus Audantia, a group of more than a dozen species... Wikipedia →