The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4): A Plain Story Simply ToldThomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur)
Science
The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4): A Plain Story Simply Told
Thomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur)
Science
The highest level at which rapid colour-change occurs is among lizards,
and the finest exhibition of it is among the chameleons. These quaint
creatures are characteristic of Africa; but they occur also in
Andalusia, Arabia, Ceylon, and Southern India. They are adapted for life
on trees, where they hunt insects with great deliberateness and success.
The protrusible tongue, ending in a sticky club, can be shot out for
about seven inches in the common chameleon. Their hands and feet are
split so that they grip the branches firmly, and the prehensile tail
rivals a monkey's. When they wish they can make themselves very slim,
contracting the body from side to side, so that they are not very
readily seen. In other circumstances, however, they do not practise
self-effacement, but the very reverse. They inflate their bodies, having
not only large lungs, but air-sacs in connection with them. The throat
bulges; the body sways from side to side; and the creature expresses its
sentiments in a hiss. The power of colour-change is very remarkable, and
depends partly on the contraction and expansion of the colour-cells
(chromatophores) in the under-skin (or dermis) and partly on
close-packed refractive granules and crystals of a waste-product called
guanin. The repertory of possible colours in the common chameleon is
greater than in any other animal except the AEsop prawn. There is a
legend of a chameleon which was brown in a brown box, green in a green
box, and blue in a blue box, and died when put into one lined with
tartan; and there is no doubt that one and the same animal has a wide
range of colours. The so-called "chameleon" (_Anolis_) of North America
is so sensitive that a passing cloud makes it change its emerald hue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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