How Do Veiled Chameleons Change Colors?

Video Transcript

"NICOLE BRAGG: On behalf of Expert Village, I'm Nicole and I'm here to tell you about Veiled Chameleons. Now, chameleons--one of the characteristics of chameleons is their amazing ability to change color. It's often thought that chameleons blend in with their environment but this is not the only reason they change color. They do change colors with their environment to blend in such as browns for climbing on the trees, the greens for matching the leaves and they also turn colors when--according to their mood. When they're angry, they tend to get--the Veiled Chameleons tend to get the black stripes with the white spots and the green in between. And the sleeping chameleon will turn a bright lime green color with no spots. Now, if she's cold, she's gonna--her whole body is going to turn more of a black color. This is--because the dark colors absorb more heat and if she's cool, she's going to go sit under her basking light, turn a darker color and absorb as much heat as she can. Now, when she is warm, when she's too warm, she's going to turn a lighter green color, sometimes a white color because this is when she wants to expel as much heat as she can. This doesn't happen very often because of the fact that she likes the higher temperatures and where we live, we don't get too many high temperatures indoors. So, as far as color changing goes, she also--many chameleons go through a breeding stage. In the Veiled Chameleons, in males, it's called the sunburst phase. They turn to bright colors, multi-colors, usually very bright, very eye-catching. The females turn a--sometimes an orangish or brownish color during breeding season but many females will not display a very obvious change of color during breeding at all. A hungry chameleon will often have--will often be trying to blend in with its environment. This is when they tend to do that not only for hiding but for making sure that their prey doesn't see him. Now, it's not just for hiding from enemies, they want to make sure that their prey is not aware of their presence either. Now, an angry chameleon such as her--she's displaying right now. What she's displaying is the angry colors. She's trying to make sure that I know that I'm not welcome in her cage."