Month: September 2022

VIDEO OF CHAMELEON COLOR CHANGES. If you have never really seen the exquisite and comical chamelion change its colors, watch this little video. https://lnkd.in/eY6KiMX View in LinkedIn

MECHANISM. "Some species can rapidly change colour through mechanisms that translocate pigment and reorient reflective plates within chromatophores. This process, often used as a type of camouflage, is called physiological colour change or metachrosis. Cephalopods such as the octopus have complex chromatophore organs controlled by muscles to achieve this, whereas vertebrates such as chameleons generate a similar effect by cell signalling." https://lnkd.in/eKtCqgg View in LinkedIn

NEURAL CONTROL. "Normally, the pigments are locked away inside tiny sacs within the cells. But when a chameleon experiences changes in body temperature or mood, its nervous system tells specific chromatophores to expand or contract. This changes the color of the cell. By varying the activity of the different chromatophores in all the layers of the skin, the chameleon can produce a whole variety of colors and patterns." https://lnkd.in/ekHVeyu View in LinkedIn

"IRIDIPHORES are the iridescent, white, or blue chromatophores occurring in the integuments, eyes, luminescent organs, and on several internal organs of a large number of invertebrates and nonmammalian vertebrates." https://lnkd.in/eD_igw7 View in LinkedIn

CHAMELION IRIDIPHORES. "These cells have attracted the interest of biologists over the years, first because of their brilliant colors, but later because they were found to be unique among chromatophores in producing nonpigmentary color. Their brilliant colors are instead a function of the structural organization of huge numbers of intracellular crystalline inclusions, occupying the bulk of the cell volume." https://lnkd.in/eD_igw7 View in LinkedIn

TRIPLE LAYERED. "The chromatophores in the upper layer, called xanthophores and erythrophores, contain yellow and red pigments, respectively. Below the chromatophores is a second layer of chromatophores called iridophores or guanophores; these contain guanine, appearing blue or white. The deepest layer of chromatophores, called melanophores, contain the dark pigment melanin, which controls how much light is reflected." https://lnkd.in/eDhWwrt View in LinkedIn

GRATING EFFECT. "Beneath the xanthophores are iridophores (also called “guanophores”), which contain colorless crystals of guanine pigment, arranged as stacks of platelets separated by cytoplasm. Their appearance is a function of the structural arrangement of platelets... depending on their spacing, the stacked guanine platelets may preferentially scatter shorter wavelengths of light and transmit longer wavelengths (Tyndall scattering), resulting in a blue appearance." https://lnkd.in/eR5ehsm View in LinkedIn

MOBILE PIGMENTS. "Dispersion of the pigment granules in the chromatophores sets the intensity of each color. When the pigment is equally distributed in a chromatophore, the whole cell is intensively colored. When the pigment is located only in the center of the cell, the cell appears mainly transparent. Chromatophores can rapidly relocate their particles of pigment, thereby influencing the animal's color." https://lnkd.in/eDhWwrt View in LinkedIn

"CHAMELEON COLORATION is a function of the type, density, and arrangement of chromatophores. For example, green coloration may be generated by the combination of yellow xanthophores underlain by blue iridophores. The extent of color change and range of colors exhibited is species-specific, as it depends on the types and distribution of chromatophores characteristic of that species." https://lnkd.in/eR5ehsm View in LinkedIn

EMOTIONAL COLORS. "An excited chameleon might turn red by fully expanding all his erythrophores, blocking out the other colors beneath them. A calm chameleon, on the other hand, might turn green by contracting his erythrophores and allowing some of the blue-reflected light from his iridophores to mix with his layer of somewhat contracted yellow xanthophores." https://lnkd.in/ekHVeyu View in LinkedIn