Chameleons: The Most Overpowered Lizard

this episode was brought to you by audible from insanely fast striking tongues to advanced color changing mechanics to the ability to see ultraviolet light chameleons are truly wondrous hi i'm danielle and you're watching Animalia logic chameleons are a family of old-world lizards whose lists of special abilities doesn't seem to end there are over a hundred and 60 different species of chameleons they come in a variety of shapes and sizes and many don't change color they're found in Africa India the Middle East and the Mediterranean but over half of all species of chameleons are endemic to madagascar chameleons as a family are at least a hundred million years old and they likely originated in Africa first things first their color contrary to popular belief chameleons primarily change colors to communicate with other chameleons of their species they don't often change colors for camouflage with a few exceptions not all chameleons can change color and instead many naturally resemble their environments though some of these can change their hue a little bit as needed the brookesia Micra is the smallest chameleon in the world measuring up to 1.5 centimeters long I built the width of a fingernail making it one of the smallest lizards ever described these guys don't change color very much and instead rely on their brown physique and adorably tiny figure to stay hidden if they're approached by a predator they simply close their eyes and pretend that they're a tiny piece of wood if the predator gets too close the tiny chameleon will jump off whatever it's on and because of their tiny size they're usually fine if they are nabbed by a predator they will vibrate their bodies at a very high frequency a defense that has been known to deter ants those that do change color like the incredibly colorful panther chameleon can turn into pretty much any color that you can think of males are typically more colorful and prettier than the females the male's will turn bright colors to show aggression usually towards other males opposing li-2 submission they will change to a darker color females on the other hand will use their colors to let males know that they're ready to mate another possible use of their color is to change to a darker color to absorb more sunlight when they're cold while most chameleons don't often change their colors to background match there are a few species that do namely the Smiths dwarf chameleons which will change colors to match their surroundings when approached by predators their main two predators are fiskle shrikes a type of bird that will impale the chameleons before eating them and Boomslang snakes both very coolly named the chameleons will put on a better show for the bird as it has much better vision when approached on a branch the chameleons will perfectly match its color to the bark and then stay incredibly still if they're approached by a Boomslang they'll change colors but not as convincingly as the boom slangs vision isn't nearly as good as the fiscal shrikes but how does their color changing actually work chameleons skin is made up of several layers the outermost layer is transparent under that layer are layers containing pigments called chromatophores under the layer of chromatophores is a layer of guanine nano crystals the space between the guanine nano crystals affects the color output and that space is controlled by the chameleons mood if a chameleon is relaxed its nano crystals will reflect a blue light which combined with the yellow chromatophores to make the chameleon reflect a green light or if they're excited the nano crystals will reflect red light which combined with the yellow chromatophores will make the chameleons appear bright orange think of it like oil and water the many different colors reflected all depend on the thickness of the layer of oil at any given point chameleons skin also has a second layer of errata fours that reflect light close to infrared this helps with thermoregulation the more you reflect the less you absorb the less you absorb the cooler you get but color changing is just one factor in the wonder that is the chameleon and possibly their coolest feature is tongue chameleons are pretty slow and clunky but their prey of insects aren't luckily they've developed quite possibly the most advanced tongue in the world a chameleons tongue is longer than their entire body usually by one and a half to two times there are three main components that make their tongues so effective the stickiness the tongue bone called a hyoid and the coils of muscle around the bone that launch and retract the tongue when launched their tongue accelerates insanely fast getting to 2,500 metres per second in less than a tenth of a second if you accelerated that fast you would feel 41 G's fighter pilots have to be able to handle 9 G's but for the RAM fully on spinosus chameleon that just isn't fast enough these tiny chameleons have a tongue that can accelerate 265 times faster than gravity if it was a car it would do zero to a hundred in a hundredth of a second they hold the record for the fastest muscle acceleration among vertebrates that's huge when the chameleon is ready to strike the muscles around the tongue bone contract creating an elastic recoil the chameleon then releases the muscles and the tongue shoots forward at incredible speeds once the tongue finds its target it's time for the stickiness to pull its weight the tip of a chameleons tongue is covered in a honey like substance a thousand times more viscous than human saliva in fact it's so sticky that it can hold on to something a third of the chameleons body weight just imagine being able to hold something a third of your body weight with just your tongue all right hold the comments interestingly enough the adhesion works better on quick strikes the faster and stronger the pull the stronger the bond when launching the tongue the tip forms a concave pouch which offers more surface area to grab their prey increasing their chances of a strong adhesion chameleons have rather distinct looking feet this is because there's Aiko ductless meaning that they have two fingers that point forward and three that point backward this is extremely helpful when climbing trees as they're able to grip branches from both sides chameleons don't have outer ears and instead here by feeling vibrations between 200 and 600 Hertz and finally their eyes chameleons have possibly the most iconic eyes in the animal kingdom their eyelids are joined and they have only a very small pinhole to see through they can move their eyes independently of one another allowing them to focus on two things at the same time this increased range of vision gives them a field of view of 360 degrees despite rarely being able to see the same thing with both eyes they have weirdly good depth perception they can spot small prey from up to 10 metres away this is due to how their eyes work their eyes give them the best amplification among any vertebrates the lenses and our eyes are convex but their's are concave this negative lens gives them a drastically increased retinal image size allowing for much much more precise focusing chameleons in the Kalama genus have little bones that protrude from their head and they are fluorescent under UV light this makes them very conspicuous to animals that have UV vision namely other chameleons which can see UV light this makes finding each other in the dark much easier many chameleons have evolved interesting abilities not found in other chameleons for example the rhinoceros chameleons have developed a rhino like horn which they use when fighting over mates yet the sailfin chameleon takes this a step further they have evolved two horns on their noses my personal favorite the jacksons chameleon goes even further and has three horns on its face one on its nose and two on its brows just like my little Triceratops but possibly the coolest of all is the brown leaf chameleon these chameleons saw all the pomp and frill their cousins were using and said nah I'm just gonna look like a dead leaf last week I talked about Tigers specifically a Siberian tiger who tracked down and killed a poacher who had wounded him and stole part of his kill it's anime Tsing said an astounding thing that happened but I wasn't able to tell the entire story if you want to listen to the full story I highly recommend that you listen to the tiger a true story of vengeance and survival by John Vaillant which you can listen to on audible if you sign up for a 30-day trial you can listen to the book for free just go to audible.com slash animal logic valent tells this unforgettable story and interweaves it with a history of how Tigers and humans have coexisted in Russia's Far East for thousands of years the story focuses on three characters the poacher the tracker and the tiger but through telling the story we learned so much about the life of the endangered Siberian tiger and the many ways in which humans have clashed and coexisted with them throughout time it's a great book I love audible and it has certainly changed the way that I read I love that I can listen to books on all my devices while I work illustrate commute or anything else that I'm doing it makes it a lot easier to fit reading into my schedule and has given me a lot more to talk about with friends and family audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet and now with audible originals this selection has gotten even bigger and more customizable audible members get one credit every month that's good for any audiobook you want and two audible originals they can't get anywhere else and the books are yours to keep also if you pick a book that you don't like you can exchange it no questions asked if you want to support animal logic and listen to your favorite books start a 30-day trial in your first audiobook is free just go to audible.com slash animal logic or text animal logic to five zero zero five zero zero to get started what animals should I talk about next let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe for new episodes of animal logic every other week thanks for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: Animalogic

Views: 546,298

Rating: 4.9001217 out of 5

Keywords: animals, animal, logic, education, show, animalogic, crazy, ugly, weird, gross, beautiful, interesting, facts, animalsfacts, about, information, info, school, research, learn, learning, fun, easy, smart, chameleon, tongue, slow, mo, slow motion, 3000 frames a second, super, camouflage, escape artist, disguise, change colour, change color, grab, horns

Id: DrtUyTFKNQ0

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 26 2018