Afternoon surprise in my garden...( pics )

[cyprusmax47]

I had late lunch on my patio today when I discovered that something was coming down the apple tree.. a very pale Chamaeleon.



I broke off a branch of the apple tree and moved it carefully towards my crystal boulders in the full sunshine in order to find out how fast it can change its colour...and it was amazing how quick this happened.



On this boulder it has different colours... within 10 seconds



and quickly changed again to this ..


I could not believe how fast a Chamaeleon can walk when it had enough exercise with the colours..



here it tries to adopt the colour of the sparkling crystals


As I thought it is enough for the poor creature I brought it back to the apple tree, where it came from...

Max

[Yioula]

Nature at its best......fabulous photography......

[Dominic]

I now have lizard envy as well as crystal envy.

[Lofos-5]

Nice chameleon and boulders!

[cyprusmax47]

I thought, what one can find at Wikipedia about changing the colours is interesting:

" Mechanism of color change
For a long time it was thought that chameleons change color by dispersion of pigment-containing organelles within their skin. However, research conducted in 2014 on panther chameleons has shown that pigment movement only represents part of the story.

Chameleons have two superimposed layers within their skin that control their color and thermoregulation. The top layer contains a lattice of guanine nanocrystals, and by exciting this lattice the spacing between the nanocrystals can be manipulated, which in turn affects which wavelengths of light are reflected and which are absorbed. Exciting the lattice increases the distance between the nanocrystals, and the skin reflects longer wavelengths of light. Thus, in a relaxed state the crystals reflect blue and green, but in an excited state the longer wavelengths such as yellow, orange, green, and red are reflected.

The skin of a chameleon also contains some yellow pigments, which combined with the blue reflected by a relaxed crystal lattice results in the characteristic green color which is common of many chameleons in their relaxed state."

Max

[PaphosAL]

Thanks for the explanation, Max, and your beautiful close-up photos of this new visitor to your garden (of Eden?)

I've stopped a couple of times when exploring up in the hills (setting Magellan gps way points for future walks) when I've seen a large chamelion frozen in the middle of the road. My instant thought was, OMG- the next car or truck is going to flatten the poor bugger...

Noting which way it was facing, I gently picked it up (which it didn't mind at all) and placed it off road in the direction it was heading for, to watch it scamper off.

Then back into the truck, drive on, with a great big happy smile on my face, for having touched mother nature so closely like that...

Cheers- AL

[cyprusmax47]

Thanks for the explanation, Max, and your beautiful close-up photos of this new visitor to your garden (of Eden?)

I've stopped a couple of times when exploring up in the hills (setting Magellan gps way points for future walks) when I've seen a large chamelion frozen in the middle of the road. My instant thought was, OMG- the next car or truck is going to flatten the poor bugger...

Noting which way it was facing, I gently picked it up (which it didn't mind at all) and placed it off road in the direction it was heading for, to watch it scamper off.

Then back into the truck, drive on, with a great big happy smile on my face, for having touched mother nature so closely like that...

Cheers- AL

That happened many times to me that chamaeleon were crossing the road and I picked them up. What's amazing that they walk so slow when they cross a road always 1 step forward and 1/2 step backwards, while when I did the photos and moved it from boulder to boulder it was very fast in order to disappear ( and made it difficult for me to do the pics)
One day, many years ago I can remember that a huge one went into the car as all windows were open when I had lunch in one of the mountain villages..

Max