Research project - Chameleon colour change

R

RachelLane95

New Member
My name is Rachel, I am a student studying Animal Management at College. In my final year I am required to complete a research project on a subject of my choice.
Due to my passion for chameleons I have decided to investigate the stimuli that cause chameleons to change colour.

For the final part of my project I am required to collect information from other owners about what causes their chameleons to change colour and what colours/patterns they display. I.e.When being handled do they go dull colours or display patterns.
Information on their colour changes during handling, feeding, spraying, change in environment or contact with other chameleons would be absolutely brilliant.

I would be grateful for any information that anyone could share.

Many thanks.
 
RachelLane95 said:
My name is Rachel, I am a student studying Animal Management at College. In my final year I am required to complete a research project on a subject of my choice.
Due to my passion for chameleons I have decided to investigate the stimuli that cause chameleons to change colour.

For the final part of my project I am required to collect information from other owners about what causes their chameleons to change colour and what colours/patterns they display. I.e.When being handled do they go dull colours or display patterns.
Information on their colour changes during handling, feeding, spraying, change in environment or contact with other chameleons would be absolutely brilliant.

I would be grateful for any information that anyone could share.

Many thanks.
Click to expand...
Oh where to start.
Perhaps you can narrow the task to exact senarios so I can comment and show photos.

For example.
Happy coloration - unstressed
Excited - saw female
Angry- saw male or disliked something
Sleeping coloration

So on and so forth.
I will be glad to help and I am sure lots of other will to if you make us a list of exacts
 
I agree, there are a tremendous amount of variables that can lead to color change. It may also help if you narrowed down the species. I know my panthers are very different than my Jackson's for example.
 
Devokid said:
I agree, there are a tremendous amount of variables that can lead to color change. It may also help if you narrowed down the species. I know my panthers are very different than my Jackson's for example.
Click to expand...
I agree. I only have panthers, but with greatly varied colorations.
I only know what makes my chams change colors. I can do this easily.
However I don't know much about veiled, jacksonii etc.
 
I have a male Veiled. 5-6 months old.

He tends to mimic the general shades of his environment, more brown on the brown couch, I place him on my MARPAT camo boonie hat and he has those colors down pat,black green yellow.
At rest ,or no stress , he is light green some light brown. very little pattern.
Asleep , bright green ,no pattern
Fearful ,(camera eye looking at him) he gets bright green with bold black tiger stripes, and puffs up. Shows a whole lot of pattern when afraid.
Unhappy or embarrassed or hurt, he gets dark,dark green.
I try to avoid the unhappy situations ,but sometimes he falls off a branch, or accidentally eats a turd, or I remove foliage from his cage , and he does not like it , they wear their heart on their sleeve, or whole body I should say.
 
Thank you so much for providing me with this information.
I have created a template of the kind of things I would like to know.
I will be looking at any species of chameleon as I am comparing information I have already collected from my investigations on Ambilobe panthers, blue bar panthers, sambava panthers, yemens and mellors.

Species:
Gender:
Age:

Feeding - type of food, colour/pattern before then colour/pattern after being given food.
Spraying - colour/pattern before and colour/pattern after (I know the chameleons I have observed become more colourful if they are touched by the water and dont like it).
Handling - Willingness to be handled, Colour/pattern before and then colour/pattern during and after handling.
Enclosure change i.e. new branches added or changed - Colour change when put back in their enclosure/investigating.
Interaction with others (same sex and opposite sex) - Colour before and then colour during and after.
Unusual/ unknown object i.e. camera - Colour before and colour after and what item was unusual to them.
 
Species: Ambilobe Nosy Be
Gender: Male
Age: 14 months

Feeding - Type of foods - Varied
Colour/pattern before then colour/pattern after being given food. Aqua to light green(pale yellow lips) / Deep sky blue Yellow lips
Photo - after 03-21@14-26-11-985.jpg


Spraying - colour/pattern before and colour/pattern after (I know the chameleons I have observed become more colourful if they are touched by the water and dont like it). Same as after food but get dark navy blue stripes Doesn't like when water is sprayed on him.

Handling - Willingness to be handled, Colour/pattern before and then colour/pattern during and after handling. Loves to be handled and waits for me at cage doors Photo - at cage door waiting to be picked up
waiting to be held.jpg

Enclosure change i.e. new branches added or changed - Colour change when put back in their enclosure/investigating. N/A


Interaction with others (same sex and opposite sex) - Colour before and then colour during and after. When he sees a receptive female he gets vivid sky blue with dark aqua bars, his eyes and lips become vivid yellow and eyes get dark blue stars Photo- Saw a female [/
COLOR] Tiamat saw a girl.jpg

Unusual/ unknown object i.e. camera - Colour before and colour after and what item was unusual to them. N/A

I added this one for you. Temperature - color more dark green/aqua less blues White stripe more apparent
Photo - Tiamat outside on a less than warm spring day
First day outside.jpg
 
Thank you so much! Thats exactly what I needed and can now finish my project! Thanks again!
Will be getting my first chameleon in July so will defiantly be on here for some tips!
 
RachelLane95 said:
Thank you so much! Thats exactly what I needed and can now finish my project! Thanks again!
Will be getting my first chameleon in July so will defiantly be on here for some tips!
Click to expand...
You're welcome.
Please PM me if you need more.
I have eight chameleons all with unique colors and habits.

Lisa
 
Something to consider here...you'll want to be careful not to assign anthropomorphic tags to cham emotions. We don't really know whether a cham "loves" to be handled or not. That's a human interpretation and it doesn't belong in your study's observations. You are observing a reptile, not a human. We do know they react to the stimulation of handling and usually express this visually because of a hormone shift that triggers a color change. I think you'll find it may be hard to describe some of the more subtle color shifts because they may actually be transitions between two more static color phases. There are pretty basic and obvious color changes we all observe...such as turning darker on the side closest to a heat source while basking, turning pale when too hot, the brighter coloration while asleep, really fired up when watching another cham, etc. If color change is triggered by changes in stress hormones they may ebb and flow all the time, so unless you are going to take samples of the hormone levels of a cham minute by minute you may have some trouble figuring out what color state a cham happens to be in at any given time. Probably beyond the scope of your project.

...just something to help define what your project is designed to find out.

Oh, and another thing to consider. Changes in body posture that go along with color changes can mean different things. For example, a cham that is fired up, curling its tail, gaping, inflating itself means something different than coloring up but not really moving at all. The first is saying "BE AFRAID...I'm not going to back off!" The second may be saying "oh look! Favorite food just showed up!"
 
Last edited:
Carlton said:
Something to consider here...you'll want to be careful not to assign anthropomorphic tags to cham emotions. We don't really know whether a cham "loves" to be handled or not. That's a human interpretation ....
Click to expand...

agree. we don't know if chameleons have feelings at all, in the human sense of the word.

Rachelle, do you still need more examples? I could give you some panther observable reaction to stimuli data.
 
Carlton said:
Something to consider here...you'll want to be careful not to assign anthropomorphic tags to cham emotions. We don't really know whether a cham "loves" to be handled or not. That's a human interpretation and it doesn't belong in your study's observations. You are observing a reptile, not a human. We do know they react to the stimulation of handling and usually express this visually because of a hormone shift that triggers a color change. I think you'll find it may be hard to describe some of the more subtle color shifts because they may actually be transitions between two more static color phases. There are pretty basic and obvious color changes we all observe...such as turning darker on the side closest to a heat source while basking, turning pale when too hot, the brighter coloration while asleep, really fired up when watching another cham, etc. If color change is triggered by changes in stress hormones they may ebb and flow all the time, so unless you are going to take samples of the hormone levels of a cham minute by minute you may have some trouble figuring out what color state a cham happens to be in at any given time. Probably beyond the scope of your project.

...just something to help define what your project is designed to find out.
Click to expand...
Let me see if I am understanding this right.
You are saying animals don't have emotions.
They don't find an affinity toward their human keeper.
Is that what you are trying to say?
It is only the keeper transferring human emotion onto the pet?

If so I totally disagree. Animals do feel and learn to trust and "love" if you will in their own way.
It is dangerous to believe otherwise. Then we get factory farming and abuse that is unspeakable, because those people think animals don't have emotion.

However that is not what this student even asked for.
I think she said she got enough to finish her project.
 
fleetwoodchams said:
Let me see if I am understanding this right.
You are saying animals don't have emotions.
They don't find an affinity toward their human keeper.
Is that what you are trying to say?
It is only the keeper transferring human emotion onto the pet?

If so I totally disagree. Animals do feel and learn to trust and "love" if you will in their own way.
It is dangerous to believe otherwise. Then we get factory farming and abuse that is unspeakable, because those people think animals don't have emotion.

However that is not what this student even asked for.
I think she said she got enough to finish her project.
Click to expand...

You have misunderstood me. I did not say animals do not have emotions!!!!!! I said a cham's emotions cannot be interpreted the SAME WAY as a human's. We are wired very differently! Every animal has a set of emotions! They are just different, and should not be compared in the same way. I keep various types of animals but I don't assume my python shows happiness or contentment in the same way my dog does. My birds express their emotions differently than everyone else in the house. It would be a huge mistake for me to lay a human emotional lens on any of my pets for whom I am responsible. It is my responsibility to understand them on THEIR terms so I can give them the best care.
 
Yeah I understand what you mean by not giving them human emotions that is why I focused on natural behaviours such as feeding, meeting other chameleons and temperature change and decided to put handling in there because I was able to test it and got some good data to show there reaction.
 
fleetwoodchams said:
Species: Ambilobe Nosy Be
Gender: Male
Age: 14 months

Feeding - Type of foods - Varied
Colour/pattern before then colour/pattern after being given food. Aqua to light green(pale yellow lips) / Deep sky blue Yellow lips
Photo - after View attachment 96076


Spraying - colour/pattern before and colour/pattern after (I know the chameleons I have observed become more colourful if they are touched by the water and dont like it). Same as after food but get dark navy blue stripes Doesn't like when water is sprayed on him.

Handling - Willingness to be handled, Colour/pattern before and then colour/pattern during and after handling. Loves to be handled and waits for me at cage doors Photo - at cage door waiting to be picked up
View attachment 96078

Enclosure change i.e. new branches added or changed - Colour change when put back in their enclosure/investigating. N/A


Interaction with others (same sex and opposite sex) - Colour before and then colour during and after. When he sees a receptive female he gets vivid sky blue with dark aqua bars, his eyes and lips become vivid yellow and eyes get dark blue stars Photo- Saw a female [/
COLOR]View attachment 96080

Unusual/ unknown object i.e. camera - Colour before and colour after and what item was unusual to them. N/A

I added this one for you. Temperature - color more dark green/aqua less blues White stripe more apparent
Photo - Tiamat outside on a less than warm spring day
View attachment 96083
Click to expand...

Hi
Would it be possible for you to send me another set of data on one of your other chameleons so I can compare the data. If its not too much trouble.
Also would you be happy with me including some of the pictures you sent me in my project.
The project will not be published anywhere it is just for my college teachers to mark and you will be given full credit for them?
 
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