Body Language
The main function of Chameleons ability to change color is communication! Where as most animals use sounds or smells to communicate, Chameleons are all about whose the flashiest! Chameleons demonstrate their broad spectrum of colors for different sorts of messages. Males show bright colors to show their dominance over another mail, Females may show bright colors to let a mate know their interested, and so on.
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Chameleon Communication
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In the article 'Chameleons communicate with complex color changes druing contests: Different body regions convey different information' by Russel Ligon and Kevin McGraw they explore the 'body language' of chameleons. The studied the different pattern changes in veiled chameleons or Chamaeleo calyptratus, to see what it all meant. They set up a sort of round-robin tournament with a total of 10 Chameleons. All 10 Chameleons would face off against each other and the results were recorded.
They found that aggressive male to male encounters were pretty much color wars. They found that some of the time the Chameleons wouldn't even actually engage physically but would just flash their colors to determine a winner. The greatest influences in winners were maximum stripe brightness, maximum head brightness, and also the rate at which their colors would change. The Chameleons would size each other up laterally from a distance. This allowed them to display but also notice the opponents stripe patterns and color/brightness variation. This was the most influential factor in whether or not the Chameleons would actually engage. If they decide to engage, they would slowly begin to approach each other for head to head com bat. This would allow them to demonstrate the color variations on their head. This would be the biggest predictor of who would win and lose the fight! |