Why Do Chameleons Change Their Color?

The word chameleon has been defined as something or someone that changes their appearance to fit into a certain stereotype or mold. This word was originated from the actual animal, the chameleon, because they blend into their environment. Why do chameleons change their color? It is a common misconception that chameleons change their color to hide from predators. People have come to this understanding about chameleons from television shows, teachers and even literature. While it is partially true that chameleons change color to hide from predators, it is not the main driving force to why they do. Research has been coming out for decades about the main reason chameleons change color. What this research has stated is that the main reason chameleons

The main reason chameleons change color is to communicate who is dominant and who is not and thus who should be able to mate with the female (Ligon and McGraw 2013). A study done on male veiled chameleons showed the competition between one another directly related to how quickly they can change their colors. It also showed how different anatomical parts change color are also directly related to how male chameleons perceive who is dominant and who is not. What the researches did was take 10 chameleons and put them up against one another. Each chameleon went against one another at least one time and by the end of this "tournament" there was a "winner." What the researchers concluded was that the faster the chameleon could change color on its' head the more likely it was to win. They also found that the brighter the stripes on the body could be directly correlated to whether or not they would win the fight. Finally, researchers concluded that there would be no physical interactions if one of the male chameleons were brighter and/or faster at changing its color. This means that chameleons understand that the faster the other can change color then the stronger or more dominant the other is (Ligon and McGraw 2013). This study proved that these animals communicate their dominance through color changes and that changing color is not just for

To figure this out researches decided to conduct an experiment to see which was the main reason color changing in chameleons has been favored by natural selection (Stuart-Fox and Moussalli 2008). To do this experiment researchers looked at 21 different species of chameleons and used analytical tests to see whether dominance/reproductive status or camouflage was more important to the animal. What the researchers found was that the chameleons used more energy to change their colors to communicate compared to when they were just trying to hide. When the researchers looked deeper into the phylogenetic tree they concluded that the driving force for color changing natural selection is to communicate and not for camouflage (Stuart-Fox and Moussalli