# Day 1: Mr. Anole Mr. Anole, the friendly green anole who has been living outside of my boyfriend's apartment since the start of spring, met his tragic end today at the (probable) paws of one of the many neighborhood cats. RIP lil' buddy, may your tail regrow eternally in lizard heaven 🙏  I grew up in south Florida, where brown anoles (*Anolis sagrei;* native to Cuba, like many other organisms in the area) have almost entirely displaced the frailer but more elegant green ones (*Anolis carolinensis;* native to the American southeast). Back home, spotting a green anole was always a particularly rare treat because, on top of being outnumbered by their *A. sagrei* cousins a hundred to one, green anoles rarely descend from the treetops where they blend in perfectly among the leaves. I actually quite like brown anoles in spite of their problematic ecology – they have much bigger personalities than the green ones, they're delightful to have around in large numbers because of how social they are and how varied their patterning can be (my personal white whale is an all-red *A. sagrei*), and they're basically synonymous with my childhood – but the green ones are inarguably prettier, with their long tapered snouts, their jewel-green scales contrasting against the bright red of their dewlaps, and ther magical color changing abilities (Mr. Anole is halfway to brown here and doesn't do much justice to the "green" in green anole, but it's what I had to work with ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯). Fortunately, while brown anoles can supposedly be found all over the South, they don't seem to have cemented their hegemony in the other Gulf states they way they have in Florida – and without hordes of *A. sagrei* around hogging up all the patio space, *A. carolinensis* come down from the trees a lot more often. The apartment is on the second floor of a two-story building, and Mr. Anole was always hanging out somewhere along the walkway that runs right outside our door, or else on one of the pillars holding it up. It is theoretically possible that Mr. Anole could have been multiple anoles; the green ones are much harder to tell apart than the red ones (though he was definitely male, as attested by his handsome dewlap). Let's hope another pretty green buddy comes along to take his place, and does a better job of avoiding the local predators. Here's the reference photo for today's piece, taken by my favorite person: