Some Niche Differences in Three Lesser Antillean Lizards of the Genus Anolis

This paper documents interspecific and intraspecific differences in certain niche parameters among 3 species of lizards of the genus Anolis occurring in the southern Lesser Antilles. The 2 species whose ranges broadly overlap in Grenada show significant differences in body temperatures and food size distributions. Although there is considerable difference in the maximum size attained by the 2 species, animals with identical head and body lengths have radically contrasting distributions of prey size: smaller individuals of the larger species take larger food than larger individuals of the smaller species. The rate of increase of average prey length with increasing head length for the smaller species is lower than that for the larger one. In all species, the larger adult makes take significantly larger prey than adult females or subadult males. For the 2 species on Grenada, adult females take significantly smaller food than subadult males of the same species and head length; there is a slight reversal of th...