AN ANALYSIS OF VARIATION IN THE HISPANIOLAN GIANT ANOLE, ANOLIS RICORDI DUMERIL AND BIBRON ALBERT SCHWARTZ' Abstract. The nominal Hispaniolan species of giant anole, Anolls ricordi, is considered to be in actuality composed of three distinct allopatric spe-cies: A. ricordi, A. barahonae, and A. baleatus. Subspecies of all three species are described, but only A. baleatus is well represented in collections. A theoretical history of this species complex upon Hispaniola is presented. The Hispaniolan giant anole, Anolis ri-cordi Dumeril and Bibron, 1837, has been known to science for more than a century; yet only in the hist 35 years has it become evident that this species is not homoge-neous in its characteristics throughout Haiti and tlie Republica Dominicana. The spe-cies was first named (as Anolis ricordii) from Santo Domingo, as the entire island was known at that historical period, but specimens seem to have been rare in col-lections thereafter. Schmidt (1921: 10) re-ported four A. ricordi from two Dominican localities. Cochran (1941: 133) Hsted 24 specimens (all but one of which were in the National Museum of Natural History) from 11 localities. Mertens (1939: 68-70) studied 17 specimens in European collec-tions and was the first to recognize that there were two readily distinguishable pop-ulations that he considered subspecies: A. r. ricordi in Haiti, and A. r. baleatus Cope in the Republica Dominicana. Williams ( 1962 ) reviewed the species in more detail and examined 90 specimens. For this suite of anoles, he described A. r. barahonae \ 1 Miami-Dade Community College, Miami, Florida 33167. Bull. Mus. Co from tlie Sierra de Baoruco in the south-western Republica Dominicana. Still later, Williams (1965) studied an additional 80 specimens and named A. r. leberi from Camp Perrin on the extreme distal portion of the Haitian Tiburon Peninsula. Thus, with increasing quantities of material from more diverse localities, our knowledge of the distribution and variation in this species has increased accordingly. A great many problems remain, however, when one deals in detail with the variation in A. ricordi. Williams (1962, 1965) pointed out that records of the species were of such a scattered nature (especially on the Tiburon Peninsula but also elsewhere on the island) that intergrades between several of the subspecies remained unknown and also that there were no specimens available from large areas between named populations. Williams and Rand (1969), in their excellent summary of the geographic differentiation in all species of Hispaniolan anoles, pointed out (p. 15) that Anolis ri-cordi was composed of "several described subspecies, some of which are sharply enough distinct to raise the question of pos-sible species status." This is most especially true of the taxa ricordi, baleatus, and bara-honae, all of which are extremely well characterized by both pigmental and struc-tural details, but all of which occupy areas (extensive in the cases of ricordi and ba-leatus) without known intergradation be-tween them or without close geographic approximation. Thus, the closest ap-mp. Zool., 146(2): 89-146, April, 1974 89
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