A norops sticks his little lizard head out from among the undergrowth in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve; just long enough for the jungle paparazzi to take his picture. This is genus Anolis-- the common name "norops" encompasses more than one hundred and fifty species of lizards in mainland South and Central America. To the locals he may be just one more of the small brown lizards that dart into the wet leaves when human feet come padding up the trails, but to me he is more significant than that. I grew up chasing anoles in the southeastern countryside of the United States; learning to differentiate them from the blue-tailed skinks who were never hesitant to leave a part of themselves behind; and learning the basics of phenology from these small and catchable critters. To find the relatives of the southeastern lizards that sparked my interest in ecology here in the cloud forests of Central America is a reminder that home is where you hang your hat, and that we are all the pieces of the same source code, now spread out across the globe.