with their independently rotating eyes
color change abilities their pincer-like
feet their long tongue that they project
out of their mouth and their slow
deliberate movements chameleons are
animals that most people would regard as
highly charismatic one of the Centers of
chameleon diversity is Madagascar and of
the 202 chameleon species that are
currently described to science 42% occur
on Madagascar one of the old theories as
to why chameleons change color was that
they were changing color to match their
background but what we now know is that
it’s actually a communication strategy
male-male combat will elicit some of the
most impressive colorations from males
from females on the other hand if a
female is gravid or she has eggs and is
not interested in breeding if a male
starts to train quarter she will display
some very intense vibrant colorations to
let them male know that she’s not
interested in 2015 scientists have
discovered that the superficial layer of
chameleon skin has pigments in it and
under that there are cells with small
guanine crystals chameleons change color
by actively tuning these basing between
these guanine crystals and what that
does is it changes the wavelength of
light that is reflected off of those
crystals and thereby changes the hue or
the color of the chameleons now
chameleons have always been considered a
master of camouflage now some of that is
actually behavioural when chameleons are
moving in the branches or moving along
the ground they do a very characteristic
back-and-forth motion and what they’re
actually doing is mimicking a leaf or a
branch in the wind and trying to break
up a typical movement pattern of an
animal running from a predator the
chameleons tongue is actually a highly
complex array of bone elastic elements
and muscle chameleons can project their
tongues up to two body lengths from
their mouth
now this is done at speeds of about 5.8
m/s or about 13 miles an hour Tong
projection and chameleons is similar in
a lot of ways to a bow and arrow before
the tongue is actually launched or the
arrow muscle action loads elastic
elements and so in a bow and arrow
that’s when the arm actually pulls the
bow back tongue launch is initiated by
the recoil of those elastic elements
that were loaded by the muscle action or
the release of the bow in the bow and
arrow model and it’s the recoil of those
lastic tissues or that bow that causes
the launch of the tongue or the arrow in
the bow and arrow example 36% of million
species are threatened with extinction
there are nine species which are
regarded as critically endangered and 37
species that are regarded as endangered
the main threats to chameleons in the
wild is actually habitat alteration and
deforestation because some chameleons
are found only in a specific type of
habitat on a single mountain this makes
them highly range restricted but when
that range restriction is combined with
other pressures on their habitat a lot
of these species become endangered
chameleons have fascinated scientists
and naturalist for centuries it’s
something that we’re still learning a
lot about
color change abilities their pincer-like
feet their long tongue that they project
out of their mouth and their slow
deliberate movements chameleons are
animals that most people would regard as
highly charismatic one of the Centers of
chameleon diversity is Madagascar and of
the 202 chameleon species that are
currently described to science 42% occur
on Madagascar one of the old theories as
to why chameleons change color was that
they were changing color to match their
background but what we now know is that
it’s actually a communication strategy
male-male combat will elicit some of the
most impressive colorations from males
from females on the other hand if a
female is gravid or she has eggs and is
not interested in breeding if a male
starts to train quarter she will display
some very intense vibrant colorations to
let them male know that she’s not
interested in 2015 scientists have
discovered that the superficial layer of
chameleon skin has pigments in it and
under that there are cells with small
guanine crystals chameleons change color
by actively tuning these basing between
these guanine crystals and what that
does is it changes the wavelength of
light that is reflected off of those
crystals and thereby changes the hue or
the color of the chameleons now
chameleons have always been considered a
master of camouflage now some of that is
actually behavioural when chameleons are
moving in the branches or moving along
the ground they do a very characteristic
back-and-forth motion and what they’re
actually doing is mimicking a leaf or a
branch in the wind and trying to break
up a typical movement pattern of an
animal running from a predator the
chameleons tongue is actually a highly
complex array of bone elastic elements
and muscle chameleons can project their
tongues up to two body lengths from
their mouth
now this is done at speeds of about 5.8
m/s or about 13 miles an hour Tong
projection and chameleons is similar in
a lot of ways to a bow and arrow before
the tongue is actually launched or the
arrow muscle action loads elastic
elements and so in a bow and arrow
that’s when the arm actually pulls the
bow back tongue launch is initiated by
the recoil of those elastic elements
that were loaded by the muscle action or
the release of the bow in the bow and
arrow model and it’s the recoil of those
lastic tissues or that bow that causes
the launch of the tongue or the arrow in
the bow and arrow example 36% of million
species are threatened with extinction
there are nine species which are
regarded as critically endangered and 37
species that are regarded as endangered
the main threats to chameleons in the
wild is actually habitat alteration and
deforestation because some chameleons
are found only in a specific type of
habitat on a single mountain this makes
them highly range restricted but when
that range restriction is combined with
other pressures on their habitat a lot
of these species become endangered
chameleons have fascinated scientists
and naturalist for centuries it’s
something that we’re still learning a
lot about
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