Chameleons: A Natural Magician.

You might have chameleon in your gardens, balcony changing colours as if it has some magical powers. But have you ever wondered how it changes colour of its skin according to surroundings.

It is believed that chameleons change colour to blend in with their surroundings, but this is actually not true.

Well this is not a magic it’s just that there body structure is such a type. It’s actually their molecular structure. 

They have several layers of specialized cells called chromatophores and these are cells that can change colour.  On the outer surface of the chameleon, the skin is transparent and just below that is the first layer of these cells, and they contain various pigments. Beneath that there are many layers of cells that have yellow colour beneath that red colour, beneath that blue colour pigment layer and at last the brown colour layer.   

Now, how does the chameleon change colour?  Well those chromatophores are connected to the nervous system. What happens is that the colours are locked away in tiny little sacs inside the cells that keep them in one place, so the cells don't look coloured. 

When a signal comes in from the nervous system or from the blood stream, the granules or vesicles can discharge colour pigments, allowing the colour to spread out across the cell, and this alters the colour of the cell. By varying the relative amount of activity of the different chromatophores in different layers of the skin, it’s like mixing different paints together. So if you mix red and yellow, you get orange for example, and this is how chameleons do this. It’s like your painting colours where we mix the basic colours to get large variety of colours. 

That’s how the chameleon changes colour, and usually does so to convey mood.

So a calm chameleon is a pale green colour.  When it gets angry, it might go bright yellow, and when it wants to mate, it basically turns on every possible colour it can which shows that it’s in the mood.  This is not unique to chameleons. So now you know that it’s not about the surroundings but it’s more to do with communication.