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I grew up in Africa.
African chameleons are _very_ cool critters.
Where I lived, most were about three inches long (in the body). The tails could be a lot longer. The tails are prehensile, and the lizards use them as anchors.
Their feet end in these opposable little claws. Their eyes are completely independent of each other, and are usually wandering around, looking at everything around them.
Their camouflage is _very_ good. They can become downright invisible in seconds.
They are also slow, and easy to catch.
We used to catch them, then put them on our index fingers, facing out. They would wrap their tails around our fingers, and didn't usually make much of an effort to escape. Real laconic little buggers.
We'd point them at flies. When they spotted a fly, both eyes would snap to the front, forming a binocular pair. Their mouths would slowly open, exposing their tongue.
Then the tongue would shoot out, fast as hell. It was often a lot longer than the chameleon. The end of the tongue has a sticky bulb that grabs the fly.
The next thing you know, they are calmly chewing (yes, they chew) their new snack.
After we got bored, we'd put them back into a bush, where they would calmly get off our finger, and change color.
Such a sweet story. Thanks for sharing. :)
Laconic doesn’t mean lazy.
>Chameleons Not Seen by Scientists for Century...
Damn! --they're good!
This was the comment I hoped to see when clicking the link. And if it wasn't here, I was going to write it!
I know we don't often do the flippant remarks thing here, but that headline was far too inviting.
Me as well! Glad someone else already did it and spared us the shame :)
This is why the ninja society haven't been found yet. They are among us, but we don't know where because they're so good at what they do.
Lizard people? NWO? Worry about the ninjas first.
I wonder if finding this one will help them figuring out a pattern to find other Chameleons ?
You can find them by looking by starlight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_(M._C._Escher)
Wow, that is stunning. Somehow I never thought about Escher having other works besides the stairs stuff.
You're in for a world of discovery. Here is just a start:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=escher&atb=v173-1&iax=images&ia=im...
Better organized:
This must be what Danforth saw in 'At the Mountains of Madness'
All that Danforth has ever hinted is that the final horror was a mirage. It was not, he declares, anything connected with the cubes and caves of those echoing, vaporous, wormily-honeycombed mountains of madness which we crossed; but a single fantastic, demoniac glimpse, among the churning zenith-clouds, of what lay back of those other violet westward mountains which the Old Ones had shunned and feared.
It is very probable that the thing was a sheer delusion born of the previous stresses we had passed through, and of the actual though unrecognized mirage of the dead transmontane city experienced near Lake's camp the day before; but it was so real to Danforth that he suffers from it still.
Thanks, Cthulhu_. I always knew I could count on you. Iä! Iä!
Or they suck, depending on whom you mean by "they".
Go back to reddit
I really want to vote you down. For some reason, I felt physical pain after reading your comment. :P
I found the joke pretty good. I don't think it's cringe. More of a dad joke.
It was a good dad joke. (bases for analysis: am a dad, did laugh, was going to make the same joke myself)
Interesting, I was going to make a joke about scientists needing to take more vacations!
People thought they were extinct, but they were just on holiday
This kind of thing is the most amazing thing about Madagascar. When I visited, I saw a frog that literally only exists and has ever existed in a 10 sq. mile area. The other cool thing about chameleons there is that they are like everywhere (though apparently there’s still surprises!). Open any random bush outside your hotel and half a dozen will stare back at you.
There's some paper called roughly "why mountain passes are higher in the tropics." Basically the closer you get towards the equator, the more unique species that exist in a very small amount of land. My theory is that the more stable climate promotes diversity and specialization, since species don't have to be general enough to live through significant temperature changes
That reminds me of some stuff on entropy and biodiversity.
https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bio_info/
I think my sense of things is similar to what you articulating. Take something like a water bear. It can survive in extreme environments and is very specialized to do so. If it changes certain characteristics, it's range of habitable environments may decrease significantly. To maximize it's survivability it minimizes it's evolutionary flexibility.
Species in more stable/predictable environments on the other hand can change more characteristics without impairing their ability to survive in their environment, so their stable/predictable environment allows them to maximize their evolutionary flexibility at the expense of being confined to that environment.
I wonder if they took some living specimens to try and propagate them in captivity. I didn't read the paper thoroughly, but it seems they didn't take any alive, though they did kill two chameleons for study.
What, they found only 3 males and 15 females, suggested themselves it should be considered an endangered species, yet they killed one of each to study???
Also looking at the paper it seems that the female had 7 eggs in her
That's sad
That story reminds me of the Bermuda Land snail rediscovered in....an alleyway.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48527398
I’m not sure how I haven’t come across the goodnewsnetwork site before but I sure am glad you posted this. Thanks!
I never realized chameleon camo is so good that it took a century to find them.
Yes the above is meant as a joke.
Madagascar sounds like such a cool place for nature-type stuff. Kind of like New Zealand or Australia.
Places I want to visit but are so far from where I live, you really need to plan it out.
Chameleons in photos always look like they're thinking "I think they see us."
I wonder if species can reappear like they appeared in the first place, with evolution schemes.
The exact same specie is very difficult, but in some cases you get two species that are very similar in spite they are not very related
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
I would say if they don't have continuous common descent, they're definitionally not the same species.
I wonder if this is just a recurring mutation.
Maybe they were hiding.