Investigations of Biotremors in the Veiled Chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus)...

[kinyonga]

"This study verifies that the veiled chameleon likely utilizes substrate-borne
vibrational communication in conspecific and possibly heterospecific contexts. This is the first study in which chameleon sensitivity to vibrations was tested behaviorally, and the resulting freeze behavior provides support for the use of biotremors in communicative contexts"...
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4071&context=theses

 

[bruce the cham]

i dont know any words you just said

 

[kinyonga]

i dont know any words you just said

You've never heard about hooting veiled chameleons?

 

[kinyonga]

Some more info you might like...
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/hooting-purring-vibrating-electric-chameleons.172655/

"This research project seeks to study how chameleons generate low frequency vibrations, some audible and some not. The mechanism responsible for this 'hoot' is unknown. A modified tracheal appendage we termed “the resonator” has been hypothesized as the potential source of this sound"...
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/386/

"The present study provides the first experimental insight into a biotremor-producing mechanism in a reptilian species. The evidence produced here, in conjunction with the absence of vocal cords (Huskey et al., 2020) and external ears (Wever, 1968, 1969a,b; Anderson and Higham, 2014), and the theoretical ability to detect biotremors (Hartline, 1971; Barnett et al., 1999) supports that biotremors may be utilized by C. calyptratus for communication (Barnett et al., 1999). However, courtship, territoriality and anti-predator trials (Barnett et al., 1999), accompanied by EMG, accelerometry and soft tissue imaging (fluoromicrometry or ultrasound), are necessary to explicitly demonstrate how the hyobranchial muscles and gular pouch may generate these biotremors in a communicative context"...
https://journals.biologists.com/jeb...role-of-hyoid-muscles-in-biotremor-production

Kenny Barnett's study of vibrations in chameleons as a form of communication...
http://www.biosci.missouri.edu/cocroft/Publications/RBC pubs/1999 Cocroft Copeia.pdf

 

[kinyonga]

Other chameleons vibrate too...
https://journals.biologists.com/jeb...role-of-hyoid-muscles-in-biotremor-production


"They also vibrate and we could feel it when we held them. We don’t really know why but it’s also probably some form of communication"...
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/r...-to-science-found-in-dwindling-malawi-forest/

"If you hold the animal in your hand, it feels a bit like a vibrating mobile phone"...
https://www.madcham.de/en/abwehr-und-fluchtverhalten-von-erdchamaeleons/

 

[Sonny13]

"This study verifies that the veiled chameleon likely utilizes substrate-borne
vibrational communication in conspecific and possibly heterospecific contexts. This is the first study in which chameleon sensitivity to vibrations was tested behaviorally, and the resulting freeze behavior provides support for the use of biotremors in communicative contexts"...
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4071&context=theses

Gonna read that one…..very interested in the tests they conducted and their results