Chameleon Sight

GooglezNvincent

GooglezNvincent

New Member
Does any body have any information on how far chameleons can see. The reason i ask is i let Kermit, my year old cham ,out and he was just roaming and he kept staring at my girl friend across the room, my girl isnt to fond of Kermit after the arm humping incident and if he really is staring at her she feels its a stalkerish stare lol.
 
I don't have any specific information on how far they can see, but I do know mine watch me all across my living room, especially during feeding time in the morning :p Not sure exactly how much that helps, but watching isnt too unusual I don't think
 
Their eye sight is excellent! It's their main form of defense as they have no other way of detecting enemies approaching other than being able to spot them moving.
 
It's really good I can tell you that cause sancho will see me in his cage from his room and I'll be in the living room which is roughly a few hundred feet and he has no problems seeing me.
 
I had a look in a book ("Chameleons - Nature's Hidden Jewels") and it says they can easily spot danger at several dozen meters, so pretty far!
 
thats sick! thats what i thought because i see Googles every once in a while stop and look at me when i have her cage in the abckyard for her to get some rays and i walk around.
 
According to the Chameleons of Madagascar DVD... They actually have the ability to telescopically zoom in on distant objects... how awesome is that!?
 
simply amazing, i can she see stops, and sometimes i walk up to her from probably close to 20 yards away and when i get close enough to see her eyeball she def. is taring at me.
 
SoCaliSon said:
According to the Chameleons of Madagascar DVD... They actually have the ability to telescopically zoom in on distant objects... how awesome is that!?
Click to expand...

Yeah, because they can move their pupils forwards and backwards in their eye turrets they can 'zoom'. But more that they can focus really well on things, so they can easily pick out the only thing moving at quite a distance by having it as the only thing in focus!

They are amazing animals which I guess is why we all keep them! :D
 
I've read in "Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity" (great book) that their eyesight is equivalent to a 150 telephoto lens. When I have Thaxter on the front steps, he shies from bicycles passing on the street (maybe 40 feet away).
 
I don't think they can see further than us, but they can definitely 'resolve' an image considerably better than us! :D They have a ridiculous amount of cone cells for the size of their eyes and they have a part of their brain for each eye to resolve each image independently! So in that way they see better than us! :D Can you look backwards and forwards at the same time!? :p
 
kinyonga said:
SliK JiM..."they have a part of their brain for each eye to resolve each image independently!"...can you post your source for this information please? I'd love to read it.

BTW....chameleons have a negative powered lens in their eyes...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v373/n6516/abs/373692a0.html
Click to expand...

It's in the book "Chameleons: Nature's Hidden Jewel's" by Petr Necas. It sadly doesn't go into any great detail and just says that's what they have! Here's the best quote: "The eyes move independently, therefore, the brain synthesises and evaluates two pictures at once" It says in a previous paragraph about the hypertrophy of the optic lobe of the brain and the optical nerve which leads to the speculation of the optic lobe having two parts. There may be other sources out there though as this is an old book! I'll have to get on google and see if I can find anything better! :D

The stuff in the link you posted is also covered in the book. It's a fascinating book and definitely worth a read. Can you guys get it in America?
 
Also, a little interesting fact I'm sure most of you know, but I thought I'd put it down is that chameleons have a 'third eye' (not an actual eye :p) known as the parietal eye that is used to sense light and heat energy (it's located on the parietal crest). It's pretty rudimentary (so not as developed as the snakes equivalent) but is still there! :D

It's believed to mainly be used by young to find a source of light and heat when they hatch. Interesting fact for y'all!
 
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