Anole on Tuesday

Anole lizards shed their skin every now and then. The outgrown skin loosens in sections, and the anole often grabs it with its teeth and pulls it off. I’ve seen many shedding anoles, but this one was a bit different. He’s a big male, and the skin he shed from his dewlap is hanging from his neck in the exact shape of the dewlap. It looks like a ghostly white dewlap.

He opened his mouth a few times and I thought he might be about to grab and pull off some of the loose skin, but he didn’t.

Then he began a dewlap display, and his actual dewlap extended out through the dewlap skin he’d shed. I’ve never seen this before.

He ran off shortly after that, and a little while later I saw him again and his shed skin was gone.