Lizards from Costa Rica

[AsydaBass]

Hello everyone,

Things have finally calmed down this year and I'm back in the States for a few months. The few pictures I put up are usually amphibian photos, so I thought I'd change it up with a few lizard photos this time. Most of these are from Costa Rica, with a few Panamanian specimens sneaking in there.

A few anoles

Green tree anole (Norops biporcatus)







Norops pachypus, female. Not the best look at the species, but I thought it was neat.



Dactyloa frenata



Blue-eyed anole (Norops woodi)







Ground anole (Norops humilus)



Pug-nosed anole (Norops capito)





Norops aquaticus



Lichen-colored anole (Norops pentaprion)



Corytophanidae:

Green basilisk (Basiliscus plumifroms)







Way more Casque-headed lizard photos than any one person should have taken

Casque-headed lizard (Corytophanes cristatus)



















A dragon?



Hoplocercidae:

Dwarf forest iguana (Enyalioides heterolepis)





A few odds and ends

Yellow-spotted night lizard (Lepidophyma flavimaculatum)



Black spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura similis)



Coral-mimic galliwasp (Diploglossus monotropis)



Talamanca galliwasp (Diploglossus bilobatus)





Leaf litter gecko (Lepidoblepharis xanthostigma)





Sphaerodactylus homolepis, adult male



Juvenile



Lepidodactylus lugubris





Turnip-tailed gecko (Thecadactylus rapicauda)



And that's it for now. I hope everyone enjoyed this small selection of saurians.

-Don
http://www.RainforestDon.com

[justinm]

Fantastic shots here, thanks for sharing them all. You're getting to see some great animals down there.

[Chris Smith]

[fickle-minder]

Everything about this post is perfect! The Casque-headed Lizard is one of my favourite lizards! The reddish one was taken very well. The talamanca galliwasp was a pretty sweet find too!

[Mike VanValen]

Excellent diversity and photography. The coral-mimic galliwasp is a sp. I've never seen...very cool.

[Ribbit]

Awesomeness incarnate. And there is no such thing as too many Corytophanes photos.

John

[moloch]

I really enjoyed this post. Wow, what a wonderful series of shots. I really like the in-situ shots where the habitat is also seen. That shot of the Pug-nosed Anole was just superb.

Regards,
David

[AsydaBass]

Thanks for the kind words, guys. I agree about the Corytophanes, they are hands down one of my favorite species. I even have a tattoo of the first one I had ever seen!
The galliwasps are always cool. I wish I had done a better job with photos of the male Talamanca galliwasp, they're truly stunning.
The habitat shots are a lot of fun to do. Photographing species in this style certainly presents challenges when shooting in the dark rainforest understory, though.

-Don
www.rainforestdon.com

[Ribbit]

Corytophanes are definitely among the coolest lizards anywhere. Weird-looking, beautiful, and willing to sit still for a long time. You probably recognized the one on my head in my avatar photo.

John

[AsydaBass]

John, I did notice that, pretty cool. They're such the sit and wait predator that the older ones often have moss and lichen growing on their bony head plates.

-Don
www.RainforestDon.com

[Roki]

I love this post and your shots are great! Makes me want a new camera like crazy!
Roki

[CJ Vialpando]

Very nice photography!

[Tamara D. McConnell]

That was an amazing amount of beauty in one post. Wow.

[CCarille]

Fantastic shots Don! And also some great diversity! Love it all, especially the Lepidophyma!

[gus]

I would be very interested to know how you got the photo of the pugnosed anole ? What settings did you use? I've tried many times to get shots of agamids similar to this under heavy canopy but the lighting makes it difficult. And flash can only be used sparingly if at all. Any pointers on this shot would be appreciated by me and I'm sure others as it is a cracker of a shot.

Cheers Gus

[BillMcGighan]

You did it again, Don.
A sensory overload post.

Are any of these lizards only (or mostly) found in the canopy?

[Brian Folt]

Tremendous images! Wow. One day I hope to see a galliwasp. But no limifrons?

Are any of these lizards only (or mostly) found in the canopy?

Norops biporcatus and Norops pentaprion are highly arboreal species (crown giant ecomode, trunk crown ecomode, respectively), but can be found near the forest floor occasionally.

[sep11ie]

Fantastic pictures. Saw some lizards I've never seen before. Thanks for sharing.

[DracoRJC]

No one else thought the basilisk embryo was the coolest thing ever?

[AsydaBass]

Thanks, Bill! Brian mentioned some of the ecology of these lizards. These exact specimens are all from the forest floor or understory.

Brian, those Diploglossus are amazing animals. D. monotropis can bite! Since you like that group, I'll have to dig out some photos of the few Celestus I've encountered. This post was just a random smattering of species, I'm sure I could produce a few dozen N. limifrons photos if you'd like

DracoRJC, right!? Haha, I thought it was a pretty cool shot too!

-Don
http://www.RainforestDon.com

[AsydaBass]

I would be very interested to know how you got the photo of the pugnosed anole ? What settings did you use? I've tried many times to get shots of agamids similar to this under heavy canopy but the lighting makes it difficult. And flash can only be used sparingly if at all. Any pointers on this shot would be appreciated by me and I'm sure others as it is a cracker of a shot.

Cheers Gus

Thanks for the kind words, Gus. This is both a tough and an easy question to answer. The easy part is checking the exif data and spouting off the settings for the wide angle N. capito photo. The tough part is not sounding like an ass when I say those setting don't matter a bit. As I'm sure you know, the settings will change from photo to photo depending on the quality of light you have available. What I look for when I take a photo in this style is an interesting background that is brighter than the the subject and focus point. I also try to find a background scene that does not have sky shining through, as this adds one more element of exposure that needs to be considered. I like even lighting. I expose for the background and use an appropriate amount of fill flash to illuminate the subject in hopes of blending the natural and artificial lighting.

In this photo I used a tripod and some sort of flash. On hand at the time was a softbox diffused Nikon SB-700 and Nikon R1C1 macro flash kit (two small R200 flashes). I may have used all three flashes, I may have only used one or two, I just don't remember. Here are some stats from the photo:

Nikon D7000 on a tripod
Nikon 10-24mm wide angle lens set at 20mm
Nikon SB-700 and Nikon R1C1 kit (some combination of these flashes used to illuminate subject only)
I may have used rear sync mode for the flash
1/5 sec
f/14 (not sure why so high, probably could have gotten away with a larger ap and a faster shutter speed)
ISO-400

Hope this helps a bit with setting up your future shots. Feel free to ask anymore questions that come to mind.

-Don
http://www.RainforestDon.com

[AsydaBass]

Here's a another Blue-eyed anole (Norops woodi) from the lower montane zone in Costa Rica. Such a cool species!



-Don
http://www.RainforestDon.com