Chameleons do not camouflage with their skin either. Temperature regulation, finding a mate and expressing anger are the major reasons a cham has chromatophores.
It’s not nearly so clear in this pic as IRL, but his skin changes to match the light. Note the color temp of the grow lights above. When I flip the lights on in the morning, he’s a faded green and gray pattern. Wish I could capture the dramatic difference, but I suck at photography.
His tank at the store was bright and full of neon colors, made him more pink and bright green. Now that his surroundings are all natural, he matches those colors.
You’re right in that it’s not a radical camouflage scheme like an octopus, but it often takes a minute to find the little fucker!
Their chromatophores will relax when they sleep, and adjust to the light when they wake up. We would let our chams free roam in my wife’s huge window garden during the day and you could see the split in their colors where one side would be dark from the sun and the other side was still light.
Their primary “camouflage” in their leaf like movements.
Veileds don’t need that high humidity, btw. They are from Yemen, after all.
Sorry. The thread confused me at first and it looked like everyone was referring to the panda colors being for temperature regulation, when you were actually referring to the cham.
Chameleons do not camouflage with their skin either. Temperature regulation, finding a mate and expressing anger are the major reasons a cham has chromatophores.
My chameleon disagrees, somewhat.
It’s not nearly so clear in this pic as IRL, but his skin changes to match the light. Note the color temp of the grow lights above. When I flip the lights on in the morning, he’s a faded green and gray pattern. Wish I could capture the dramatic difference, but I suck at photography.
His tank at the store was bright and full of neon colors, made him more pink and bright green. Now that his surroundings are all natural, he matches those colors.
You’re right in that it’s not a radical camouflage scheme like an octopus, but it often takes a minute to find the little fucker!
Their chromatophores will relax when they sleep, and adjust to the light when they wake up. We would let our chams free roam in my wife’s huge window garden during the day and you could see the split in their colors where one side would be dark from the sun and the other side was still light.
Their primary “camouflage” in their leaf like movements.
Veileds don’t need that high humidity, btw. They are from Yemen, after all.
Which is what I said and then posted links to articles that backed that up.
Sorry. The thread confused me at first and it looked like everyone was referring to the panda colors being for temperature regulation, when you were actually referring to the cham.