How does a beautiful chameleon change color?

in photography •  4 years ago 

Chameleons (Chamaeleontes), a worm-tongued (Vermilinguia) lizard suborder with a small, flattened body. With the process of the occipital bone, the scales form a kind of helmet and crest on the back. The legs are slender and five-fingered, the tail is round and tenacious, and the skin is warty.

The chameleon's natural colour is grayish-green, which blends in with woody foliage, but it can easily transform to yellowish or bluish-green, grayish-brown, black, milky, meaty, or purple in all shades when exposed to external stimuli or internal impulses. Chameleons are quickly tamed and live in groups in trees.

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For a long time, scientists assumed that the lizard changed color in response to its surroundings in order to blend in with the background. However, this is not the case. A chameleon's color is determined by its feelings. Fear, anger, and calmness are all mirrored in the reptile's color. A chameleon's color brightens when it is startled. When you're angry, everything goes dark, all the way down to blackness.

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The chameleon lives on tree and bushes' branches. He travels at a glacial rate. He slowly rearranges one leg, squeezes a branch, and then does the same with the other... The animal does not know how to run in general. As a result, defensive coloration is an effective tool for an animal to hide from predators.

If escape is not possible, the chameleon will adopt a menacing posture, become enraged, turn black, and "swell," rising in size by one and a half times. The enemy may be startled by such a drastic shift.

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The exceptionally small size of local chameleons is attributed to evolutionary processes in Madagascar linked to the island's isolation, according to scientists. Animals on the islands grow much bigger or smaller than their non-isolated relatives. So, once upon a time, elephants the size of wolves walked the streets of Malta, and moa birds grew to be 3.5 metres tall in New Zealand.


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