Are chameleons right or left "handed"

[burnedrose]

I was handling Kukui this morning and I noticed something funny - he always tends to change the colors on his left side faster and with more brilliance than on his right side. It's not such a marked difference that you would notice it right away, but it's different enough for me to notice after watching him for about 20 minutes. He did this the other day as well, same side, but I passed it off to the fact that he was holding onto his branch sideways and his left side was facing the sun more.

So it got me thinking - does anyone else notice their chameleon is more one-sided or anything like that? Do they tend to show more brilliant colors on one side VS another? Or could it be that he just felt like the sun was striking him better on one side VS the other and changed colors in order to fully absorb the suns rays?

 

[carol5208]

yes sometimes they will display colors very different from the other side.

 

[jdog1027]

Chameleons will do that regularly, mine do it especially in the morning. When the lights first come on or the sun first comes up, they will darken on the side facing the heat source so that they can warm up. They will most often also laterally flatten themselves and point the darker side directly at the heat, like a solar panel to more effectively aquire heat. My chameleons that I house outside do this more commonly.