I spent 3.5 days on Roatan Island at the end of February, 2015 to find and photograph some of its many reptiles. This island is about 40 miles long with a central spine of low hills.

Caribbean islands are fantastic places to see lizards because of the sheer numbers present and the ability of lizards to adapt to human habitation. Both of these factors make lizard watching relatively easy. Roatan lived up to and surpassed my expectations. I was just putting my rental car into a parking space at the Mariposa Lodge when I saw my first lizard, which was
Anolis allisoni. The male
Anolis allisoni has a very pronounced, elongated snout with bluish head coloration.

The female does not have the elongated snout nor the bluish head and is much smaller. This photo of a copulating pair demonstrates this sexual dimorphism.

This pair was coupled for several minutes. Was he annoyed at me for photographing him in the "act" since after they uncoupled, the male presented his dewlap to me.

I got pictures of the same male
Anolis allisoni copulating and with the dewlap displayed. Thank you lizard for the cooperation!! One male
Anolis allisoni who apparently had not warmed up for the day presented with an overall dark brown body coloration. His snout looked extremely comical in this pose on the fence wall.

The southwest shore of Roatan is lined in some areas by fossilized reef that was thrust up from the sea floor by tectonic activity. This fossilized reef is called ironshore, which acquires interesting shapes when exposed to the elements.

An iguanid endemic to Roatan,
Ctenosaura oedirhina can be found amongst the rocks and nearby vegetated areas. The first one I saw was a female or subadult on a rock that was also occupied by a male
Basiliscus vittatus. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!

Subadults or female
Ctenosaura oedirhina were much more common than adult males.
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[/url] I did not see an adult male until my third day on the island. It was very early in the morning with the sun near the horizon shining its light into my eyes. I looked towards the ironshore formation into the glaring sunlight and did not see any
Ctenosaura. I was about to turn away when my eyes detected the alternating dark and light vertical banding pattern I had seen in photos of adult male
Ctenosaura oedirhina. I really did not see the lizard per se in the glaring sunlight until after I spotted the color bands.

A pair of Gymnophthalmus speciosus were having a fierce battle several hundred feet away at the leaf litter/sandy beach interface. [url=http://s300.photobucket.com/user/MLB65/ ... o.jpg.html]
There were a group of about a dozen
Gymnophthalmus speciosus in the leaf litter adjacent to a sandy beach on the north shore of Roatan. These were moving through the leaf litter to briefly appear and stop at the surface for a few seconds. I did manage to get one decent photo of these guys before they dove back underneath the leaf litter. Where they following a pheromone trail?
Basiliscus vittatus were seen along the beach vegetation, in the vegetation at the Mariposa Lodge, as well as the vegetation amongst the ironshore formations. Here is a juvenile
Basiliscus vittatus atop beach debris.

This male had a striking pose on the stump of a palm tree, which was in the yard of a vacation rental.

The endemic dwarf gecko,
Sphaerodactylus rosaurae was seen at the base of a palm tree trunk and quickly scampered up the trunk. I did manage to get this one shot before it dove into the palm fronds.

The teiids are represented by the brilliantly colored
Cnemidophorus ruatanus, which inhabit sandy beach/vegetation habitat. The males have brilliant, luminescent green background coloration with tiny yellow spots. The head and forefeet are a brilliant blue.

Sexual dimorphism is present in
Cnemidophorus ruatanus. Females have alternating horizontal narrow yellow and wide black stripes with green coloration only present on the ventral scales. This species was recently classified as a separate species from the rainbow lizard,
Cnemidophorus lemniscatus.

What would a trip to a tropical location be without spotting exotic geckos at the hotel. Several dozen
Hemidactylus frenatus could be seen every night at the veranda of the lodge.

On the north shore of Roatan at the interface between leaf litter and sandy beach, I spotted this pair of
Gymnophthalmus speciosus engaged in fierce combat. This combat lasted for several minutes.

This site was several hundred feet away from the dozen or so
Gymnophthalmus speciosus that were engaged in presumably more amorous activities as mentioned above. Unfortunately, I did not observe the endemic
Norops roatanensis but I did see and photograph a
Norps sagrei. I only saw one snake which could have been
Drymarchon melanurus based on its large size and coloration but alas it slipped into the undergrowth before I could get a better view. I did not go looking for snakes at night since I was traveling solo.
Identification of the lizards was made possiblewith the use of the excellent book entitled " Amphibians and Reptiles of the Bay Islands and Cayos Cochinos, Honduras" by James R. McCranie, Larry David Wilson, and Gunther Kohler.