A morphological comparison of Anolis sagrei duméril et bibron 1837, from two localities in Taiwan

Two populations of the exotic invasive lizard, the brown anole (Anolis sagrei), exist in Taiwan. The localities (Chisintang, eastern Taiwan and Santzepu, southwestern Taiwan) of these two populations are ca. 125 km apart and are divided by the Central Mountain Range. Anolis sagrei specimens, which had been sampled from the Chisintang and Santzepu populations, were used for morphological and meristic comparisons. Only a few intralocality intersexual variations were noted, the most important of which are the sexual size dimorphism and the morphological variations, due to intersexual niche partitioning. Many interlocality intrasexual variations, likely due to interlocality structural habitat differences, and a possible competition and predator induced lifestyle shift of A. sagrei in Chisintang were noted. Still, in spite of the variations found in the comparisons between the A. sagrei collected from Chisintang and Santzepu, because some hypothetical explanations for these variations exist, it is our opinion that the two populations described herein have the same founder population, and that the one is a satellite population of the other.