🐾 Chameleon

Chameleon

▶

▶ ▶ ▶ ▶

Tap a video to play it

🔍 See more videos →

Photos

✖ ❮ ❯

Who it is

• Scientific name: Family Chamaeleonidae
• Family & relatives: A family of lizards (Chamaeleonidae) within the group that includes agamas and iguanas.
• How to spot it: A tree lizard with independently swiveling turret eyes, a curled grasping tail, and pincer-like grouped toes.

Its body & abilities

• Size: Ranges hugely, from tiny species under 3 cm to large ones around 60 to 70 cm long.
• Weight: From a fraction of a gram in the smallest species to over 200 g in the largest.
• Body & adaptations: It changes color using special skin cells and can shoot out a sticky tongue longer than its own body.
• Top speed: Slow and deliberate movers; the tongue, however, strikes prey in a fraction of a second.
• Strength: Its projectile tongue can extend well over a body length and hits with remarkable acceleration.
• Senses: Superb 360-degree vision from two independently aiming eyes that can focus together to judge distance.
• Growing up: Most hatch from eggs (a few give live birth), are independent at once, and mature in under a year.

Where it lives

• Habitat: Mostly forests, woodlands, and scrub, from rainforests to dry savannas.
• Where in the world: Mainly Africa and Madagascar, with some species in southern Europe, the Middle East, and southern Asia.
• Territory: Males often defend a small territory in a tree or shrub and drive off rivals.

What it eats

• Diet: Mainly insectivore, getting moisture from prey and from licking dew and rain droplets.
• Favorite foods: Insects such as crickets, locusts, and flies; large species also take small birds and lizards.
• How it hunts: It sits and waits, creeping close and then firing its long sticky tongue to snatch prey.

How it behaves

• How it moves: Climbs slowly and steadily, gripping with pincer feet and its prehensile tail, often swaying like a leaf.
• When it is active: Diurnal, hunting by day and sleeping on branches at night.
• Family life: Largely solitary and territorial, coming together mainly to mate; there is no group name.
• How it talks: Communicates mostly through color changes and body posture that signal mood and status.
• Babies: Most lay clutches of eggs buried in soil that hatch weeks or months later, with no parental care.

Its place in nature

• Role in nature: Controls insect numbers; snakes, birds, and mammals prey on chameleons.
• Conservation: Status varies by species from Least Concern to Critically Endangered, with many Madagascar species threatened by habitat loss.
• Dangers: Dies from predation, habitat loss, and collection for the pet trade.

Life & legacy

• How long it lives: Often just 2 to 3 years for small species, up to around 10 years for larger ones.
• In our culture: A worldwide symbol of change and adaptability thanks to its famous color-shifting skin.
• Where to see it: Rainforests and reserves of Madagascar and East Africa, plus reptile houses in reputable zoos.
• Fun fact: Chameleons change color mainly to communicate and control temperature, not just to match their background.