Chris Anderson on Daily Planet

Well that cured my insomnia! :p ;) :p

Seriously though, the clip was excellent. Your work and findings were presented in an intelligent manner, you spoke well and there were no glaring scientific errors. The chameleons themselves were protrayed as worthy species with adaptability in the various ecological niches. Not just as some cool lizard with flashy outfits and blazing tongues as mass media tends to do.

Keep up the good work my friend.
Cheers,
t
 
Chris that was great!!!!! When I heard the guy say 15 degrees, i thought"that cham is going to be an ice cube, then I remembered that it was Canadian and in Celsius! DUH!!!!!!!

It was a great piece!

Jeffrey
 
Thanks everyone, I'm glad you all enjoyed it. Like I said, I'm very pleased with how it came out.

I really only use veileds for my research. I brought in other chams from my collection just to mix it up for the filming so I haven't looked at interspecific variation yet but that is on the list of things to do. The Veileds are research animals, not my own. Also, in scientific studies, we always use metric measurements so I find myself switching back and forth a lot between every day and lab work.

Chris
 
That was an awesome lil segment there! Very interesting study. My question is is that even though they can feed in different temperature conditions, can they also regulate their own body temperature in colder conditions?

-Dave
 
Dave,

I just saw this message now. Sorry for the late reply.

In alpine zones where some species live there are overnight temperature drops into freezing temperatures. There is also an early morning burst of activity of alpine insects. Being able to feed at low body temperatures has been suggested to allow these species to take advantage of this burst in activity. If they waited for temps to rise, they would possibly miss much of it. They are generally able to raise their body temperature significantly as the day progresses from basking, however.

Chris
 
Interesting - I noticed this this weekend. In the mountains (only about 2500 feet here), it was in the 30's or 40s at night, but first light, the bugs are all over the place - weirdly active, especially given the temperature.

Much to my dismay, I found out last spring (while turkey hunting), that mosquitos are not excluded from those insects...
 
very impressive studies. Is there a site or something that lists your studies? I would be interested in just browsing all the different studies that have been done on chameleons. I am going to school for range and wildlife management so I am really into studying effects such as temperature on species etc.
 
Thanks Chris now any toungue pic I take will pale in comparison. LOL only partly kidding but yes it was a very nice video. Hey can I toss my frozen chams now?
 
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