E, E, WILLIAMS (MCZ) has a miscellany of topics under review. 
1. South American anoles 
Williams' work on South American anoles has progressed to the point that 
provisional species groups can be recognized (Table 3). Certain biogeographic 
patterns are evident. Among alpha anoles, one marked instance of disjunction 
is evident: the tigrinus group occurs only in the Northern Tier (northern 
Colombia, northern Venezuela) and in the Atlantic Forest of Brasil (in the 
state of Espirito Santo only). These are dwarf anoles apparently paralleling 
the twig-anole ecomorphs of the West Indies. In contrast to this obviously 
relict series is the punctatus group, species of moderate to small size, 
diverse and widespread, closest in ecomorph type to the trunk-crown anoles 
of the West Indies. Some, punctatus itself is an extreme example, have very 
wide distributions while showing very little evidence of intraspecies 
differentiation, Others are relatively local or known at present from single 
specimens, The group is Amazonian-Guianan but with a series of representatives 
west of the Andes. 
The laevis species group is the proboscis anoles. The punctatus group 
tends to long-headedness but this is achieved either by real attenuation of 
the head itself or, as in punctatus, by a swelling of the rostral scale. In 
the laevis group the head may be somewhat elongate but a fleshy protuberance 
is added involving scales above the rostral, small in laevis itself (the 
Amazonian periphery in Peru), much longer in A. phyllorhinus (central 
Amazonian) but half as long as the head in A. proboscis (west of the Andes 
in Ecuador). From the toe pad development, it is clear that this group is 
arboreal, but only seven specimens are known (four A. proboscis, the type 
and a second specimen of A. phyllorhinus and the type only of A. laevis). 
The two remaining alpha groups both tend to giant size but, in contrast 
to the West Indies anole giants, they are not so highly arboreal, tending to 
a trunk-ground or even ground structural habitat. 
The latifrons group and the aequatorialis group differ most importantly 
in the narrow digital pads of the latter. Narrowed pads should imply less 
arboreality, hence the aequatorialis group is suspected of more of a ground 
habitat than the latifrons group. One species - eulaemus - is known to 
sleep in grass and bushes, 
The latifrons group extends from the trans-Andean area in Colombia and 
Ecuador into Panama and Costa Rica (two species - microtus and insignis - 
are in fact wholly Central American). An outlying Northern Tier species is 
A. squamulatus in the coastal range of Venezuela. 
The aequatorialis group is primarily trans-Andean in Colombia and Ecuador 
but extends into Amazonia thru the low mountain passes in Ecuador. 
