Anolis carolinensis
Anolis carolinensis or green anole is a tree-dwelling species of anole lizard native to the southeastern United States and introduced to islands in the Pacific and Caribbean. A small to medium-sized lizard, the green anole is a trunk-crown ecomorph and can change its color to several shades from brown to green.

Paul Hirst ( Phirst ) · CC BY-SA 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- green anolePBDB
- Sits inside
- AnolisPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 763 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 774 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
12 occurrences of Anolis carolinensis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
12 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Anolis carolinensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Anolis carolinensis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Anolis carolinensis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
376 taxa- Dasypus bellus8 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo8 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus8 sites
- Equus7 sites
- Terrapene carolina7 sites
- Holmesina septentrionalis6 sites
- Neofiber alleni6 sites
- Oryzomys palustris6 sites
- Podilymbus podiceps6 sites
- Rana6 sites
- Tapirus (Helicotapirus) veroensis6 sites
- Tremarctos floridanus6 sites
- Aythya collaris5 sites
- Crotalus adamanteus5 sites
- Ectopistes migratorius5 sites
- Elaphe5 sites
- Geomys pinetis5 sites
- Gopherus polyphemus5 sites
- Lynx rufus5 sites
- Mammut americanum5 sites
- Neotoma floridana5 sites
- Ophisaurus ventralis5 sites
- Plethodon glutinosus5 sites
- Procyon lotor5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Anolis carolinensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
9 references- Additional records of Pleistocene lizards from Florida4
- Middle Pleistocene (early Rancholabrean) vertebrates and associated marine and non-marine invertebrates from Oldsmar, Pinnellas County, Florida1
- Taphonomy of a late Pleistocene carnivore den, Dade County, Florida1
- A late Pleistocene herpetofauna from Bell Cave, Alabama1
- A Pleistocene herpetofauna from Ladds, Georgia1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
- A Pleistocene herpetofauna near Orange Lake, Florida1
- Amphibians and reptiles from the Pleistocene (Illinoian) of Williston, Florida1
- The Pleistocene herpetofauna of Saber-tooth Cave, Citrus County, Florida1
Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Anolis carolinensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Paul Hirst ( Phirst )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Anolis carolinensis was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAnolis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Voight 1832