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Chameleons

                  Chameleons are very famous for being able to change colors. Most people don’t exactly how or why they change color. Read on to find out why.

Chameleons do not change color to match their surroundings. (Well maybe sometimes) They actually change color to match their emotions and feelings. Like if the chameleon is sick, too hot, too cold or is hungry. Chameleons can change a variety of different colors but the most often changed colors are pink, blue, red, orange, green, black, brown, light blue, yellow and turquoise. Why can chameleons change color? Under their transparent outer skin they have cells called chromatophores.

 How many worldwide species many was a big question of mine!     

I found out that there are about 158 different species of chameleons plus some new species. The shortest chameleon is the Pygmy leaf chameleon and the longest is the Madagascan chameleon. Chameleon species range from Africa, Madagascar, southern Europe, and Asia. I was very surprised to find out that they live all the way over in southern Europe.

Chameleons live about 10 years in captivity but no one knows for sure how long they live in the wild.

Their life cycle’s is almost the same as any reptile, though the Parson’s Chameleon can take up to 24 months to hatch! (That’s more than a year) Small species of chameleons lay 2-4 eggs, larger species lay 80-100 eggs. The answer I didn’t get was how long the baby chameleon babies stay with their mom and Dad.

Chameleons are very interesting but I didn’t know half of it so I decided to research them, I found out that they were really interesting.

Some questions I didn’t get the answer to

How long do the babies stay with their Mom and Dad’s?

Do they have protection? (Like a scorpion)

How big is the range of different chameleons?

Some other interesting facts you might not know

They can swivel their eyes around

The name chameleon means “Earth Lion”

A chameleon will only fight with the same species as itself

Their feet are shaped like pincers so that they can hold to branches tightly