Like many residents of warm climates, the brown lizards scurrying around New Orleans have a worse temper in extreme heat.
According to a new study from Tulane researchers, these invasive brown anoles grow more aggressive toward their native green counterparts as temperatures rise. The research helps provide an explanation for why the green lizards many New Orleanians remember from their childhood have seemed to become scarce recently.
The combative behavior of the brown lizards — such as push-ups, changing colors and biting — makes life harder for the green lizards. In the face of a warming climate, the new research published in October in the Journal of Thermal Biology bodes poorly for the comparatively mild-mannered green lizards, the only anole native to North America…